Fights and Flights
by Puff the Ninja
Summary: Team Voltron heads to the Balmera and dives into their first rescue mission to free Shay and her people from the Galra. As Mari slowly begins to open up to her teammates, she has unsettling encounters with Zarkon's druids and his dark sorceress, Haggar. **Rated T to be safe!**
1. Chapter 1

****Author's note:** Hello all and welcome to the third story featuring Mariko and the rest of the Voltron crew! If you're new here, I recommend that you read the other two stories in this series first: _Rise of Voltron_ and _Turmoil_ _Begins_. So, without further ado, here's _Fights and Flights_! Enjoy! :D

**I do not own Voltron: Legendary Defender!

* * *

"All righty then! I've successfully transferred all your memories back into the crystal. Here you are, Number Five."

Coran held out the Putaverunt Crystal to Mari, the glossy orb once again filled with glowing blue particles that were some of her most important memories. Smiling gratefully to the Altean, she took the gem from him and cupped it in her hands.

"Thanks for doing this, Coran," Mari said, following him as they exited the memory storage unit chamber. "I really appreciate it."

"It was no problem, my dear," he replied cheerfully. "I have to flush the ship's systems of that Galra crystal's energy anyways, so I might as well have done this first. Wouldn't want your memories to get deleted or tainted in the process."

"Deleted or tainted?" she frowned, raising a quizzical eyebrow at him. "What about Allura's father's memories? Will they be okay?"

"Don't worry, I'll be using a special program to cleanse Alfor's A.I. unit. His memories won't be damaged in the slightest," Coran assured her. "Now, let's head back to the bridge and start clearing all these systems. Well, I suppose I'll be doing the majority of the work since you, uh…can't read Altean."

Mari gave Coran a sour look that went unnoticed by him, and she sighed. Not too long ago they were well on their way to the Balmera, but as they gathered to discuss possible plans of attack, the Castle received a distress signal from a nearby moon. Allura insisted that they stop by and investigate, much to Hunk's dismay, and they discovered a crew of scavengers with a powerless ship.

Everyone except Coran and Mari had gone down to the surface to offer their assistance, with Mari claiming that she'd like to stay behind and help Coran with the Castle. She knew she wasn't going to be able to fight in every battle and she couldn't ever pilot the Castle of Lions, but maybe she could learn more about its systems instead. It would be wonderful if she knew how the castle-ship functioned; then she could help fix damaged structures after battles, or maybe she could operate the blasters if Coran or Allura were ever unable to. She didn't think she needed to be Altean to fire a laser cannon. How hard could shooting extremely powerful, extremely advanced, and extremely large guns be, right?

… _Right_?

Oh, who was she kidding? Other than motor vehicles, aircrafts, certain video games, her computer, and her cell phone, Mari could hardly understand and use Earth's technology. There was no way she was going to be able to properly operate the advanced systems within the Castle of Lions, whether she knew Altean or not.

 _Maybe I should have just gone with the others_ , she thought to herself as she watched Coran flit back and forth between his control panels on the bridge. _At least they're being productive down there._

Behind her, the bridge doors slid open and a rather irate Hunk stormed into the room, a long piece of paper clenched in his hand. He marched straight up to Coran, startling the Altean as he thrust the paper forward.

"Oh? And what's this?" Coran asked, squinting at the words printed on the page in Hunk's hand.

"It's a list of parts those guys need to fix their ship," the paladin explained. "The one guy—Rolo, was his name, I think?— says that their whole flaxum assembly is supposedly shot."

"Ah, I see," Coran said. "Well, if you would follow me, I can show you where we keep our spare ship parts."

With Mari tagging along, the trio took the elevator down several levels before Coran led them to a vast and neatly organized storage room full of all sorts of machinery scraps. A crate sat next to the door and when Coran pressed a button on its lid, the top slid off and the whole thing began to hover several inches off the ground. He dragged the crate past several rows of workbenches and shelves before coming to a halt in front of one.

"All right, everything they'd need to repair a damaged flaxum assembly is on these three shelves," he said, patting all three ledges. "Now if you'll excuse me, I really must get started on cleaning the Castle's systems."

"Thanks Coran," Hunk said. "I've got it from here."

"I'll stay and help you," Mari decided. "I don't think I'll be able to help Coran with the Castle after all. But I should be able to do this."

Coran nodded in complete understanding. "Just bring that crate down to them once you've finished gathering the items. Call me if you need me!" he instructed before disappearing through the door, leaving the two humans alone in the storage room.

"Giving up on your apprenticeship already?" Hunk asked jokingly and Mari gave him an unamused look.

"Altean tech is too complicated for me," she sighed. "I can't read the screens and I haven't been able to understand anything Coran's been saying for the past half-hour that we've been working. I'll just leave that kind of stuff to him, you, and Pidge."

"If you say so," Hunk grinned. "Okay, now what do we need on this list…"

His eyes skimmed over the paper in his hands and his smile slowly faded. His brow furrowed and he scowled as he realized, "I don't know what any of this means."

"What?"

"I've never heard of any of these things on here. It just looks like a bunch of gibberish," he said, showing Mari the list as if to prove his point. Foreign sounding and looking words littered the page and she grimaced at the thought of trying to pronounce any of them.

"Okaaaayyy…" she drawled. "Should we ask Coran if he can translate it for us?"

"Finding him again and having him do that will take too long," Hunk waved the suggestion away. "Let's just load as much of this stuff as we can into here and bring it down to the surface. Hopefully we'll bring everything Rolo needs to fix his ship."

His plan didn't sound very efficient, but before Mari could argue, he hurriedly began to pick items up off the shelves and deposit them in the hover-crate. Shrugging helplessly, Mari followed suit and began to transfer the smaller, less heavy objects.

"Do you think it's going to take a while for their flax-whatever to be repaired?" she asked, trying to make conversation.

"I hope not. We've already kept Shay and her people waiting for too long now. Who knows what the Galra could've have done to them by now?" Hunk fretted. "We've already wasted enough time. After this, we're going straight to the Balmera."

That's right, they had spent an extra day on Arus for Mari to recover. A pang of guilt shot through her and she frowned as she muttered, "Sorry."

Hunk winced, realizing his blunder. "W-Wait, wait, that's not what I meant," he nervously tried to apologize. "Helping those Arusians and helping you figure stuff out, th-that wasn't a waste of time. Not at all, really. I'm, uh, glad—no, _thrilled_ , that you're feeling better now and I—"

"Hunk."

"Y-Yeah?"

"I get it," Mari smiled slightly, and Hunk seemed to deflate a bit.

"I'm sorry, Mari," he sighed. "I'm just really worried about Shay."

"I can tell."

"And I just don't feel right about these scavenger guys. They're giving me a bad feeling in my gut."

"Are you sure that's not just the impatience talking?" Mari asked, pulling a large cylindrical piece of hardware off the shelf, only to nearly drop it onto her foot with how unexpectedly heavy it was. Hunk immediately came to her aid, taking the hefty item into his own hands and moving it into the crate with ease.

"I'm positive it's not," he said. "My gut is never wrong. You haven't met these guys, Mari. They don't seem trustworthy to me."

"Well, if you think something's up with them, I guess I'll have to assess their characters for myself."

"You're going back down with me?"

"Yeah, I might as well. I already said I can't really help Coran," Mari shrugged. "Besides, I don't think we can fit anymore into that box and there's still stuff on the shelf. If you've got the crate, I can carry what's left over."

A few pipe-looking parts remained on the shelves and she easily scooped them into her arms. With Hunk lugging the hover-crate stuffed with machine pieces and her carrying the remaining supplies, the duo headed down the hall towards the elevator.

"So, kind of a random question, but you know how to make egg rolls, right?" Hunk asked, grunting as he pulled the crate through the elevator doors.

Mari looked at him in surprise . "How did you—"

"Shiro kinda told us about your grandfather's traditional egg rolls when we were watching your memories," Hunk explained sheepishly. "He said that you guys were taught how to make them."

"Yeah, ojiisan taught us when we were younger," she smiled slightly to herself. "It's been years since I've made them. I was actually thinking about preparing some for when Takashi returned home from the Kerberos mission, but…well, you know how that ended."

"Mhm…" Hunk hummed. "But I was thinking, maybe we could try making our own egg rolls here in the Castle. It doesn't have to be today or anything, cuz we obviously have a mission to do, but I thought it would be nice if we—as a team, I mean—tried making them together one of these day."

Mari gave him an unsure look. "But what about the ingredients? We don't have anything we need to make them in the kitchen."

"That's what'll make it so fun!" Hunk beamed excitedly. "We get to experiment with a bunch of different recipes and foreign foods. Ooh! What if we had a taste-testing competition too? That would be so awesome!"

"I guess it could be a good team bonding exercise," she admitted, grinning as the memory of their food goo battle resurfaced. "Okay, we should do it sometime."

"You sounded exactly like Shiro, just then," he laughed and Mari felt her cheeks flush.

"I-I do not!" she scowled at him. "I just want to get to know you and the others a bit better, that's all."

Hunk beamed warmly at her, all of his irritation from earlier having completely vanished. "It's nice having you open up to us," he said. "I like this version of you a lot better."

Mari smiled to herself, silently agreeing with him. She was finally starting to feel comfortable living in the Castle, and interacting with the others was becoming a bit easier. It felt good not having her walls up all the time; she could finally relax around the team.

After reaching the bottom level of the Castle, they took the transport pod down to the moon's surface. Hunk pulled the crate out of the pod and parked it off to the side before Mari dumped the pipes in her arms onto the ground next to it.

"So I'm guessing that's Rolo then?" she whispered to Hunk, nodding to the purple male alien that was sitting in front of a campfire next to a clunky cargo ship. He was discussing something with Allura, Shiro, and Keith, and as Mari glanced around the area, she noticed that Pidge was playing with a robot nearby and Lance was talking to a yellow female alien a ways off.

"That's him all right," Hunk confirmed, frowning in dismay at Rolo. "That robot, Beezer, and that girl, Nyma, are his crew members."

"I see."

"Doesn't Rolo look shifty?"

"Umm…Not exactly?"

"What? How does he not look suspicious? Just look at what he's wearing!"

"Did you expect him to be wearing a fancy suit or something? He's a scavenger, Hunk, not an alien tycoon. You shouldn't judge a book by it's cover."

"Yeah, well I still think this 'book' shouldn't be trusted," he insisted with a determined scowl. "He's got some nasty pages inside of him, I'm sure of it."

Mari raised a quizzical eyebrow at him, but said nothing. She folded her arms over her chest and leaned against the crate full of ship parts as she watched Hunk approach the group sitting around the fire.

"Hey, sorry to interrupt, but I think you guys are kind of keeping Rolo from working," he said, interrupting whatever conversation the scavenger had been having with the two paladins and Allura. "It's just that we're in a hurry. A hero named Shay saved my life, and I swore I would return to do the same for her and her people. You understand."

"Sure. Sorry," Rolo nodded apologetically, standing and patting the Yellow Paladin on the shoulder. He moved towards the container of spare parts and an amused smile played on his lips as he noticed Mari. "S'cuse me, beautiful," he said, gesturing to the cargo she was blocking.

Bristling at the pet name, Mari scowled at him and huffed indignantly before brushing past him so she could join the others near the fire. Behind her, she could hear Rolo chuckle, "We've got a feisty one over here," and it took all her willpower not to spin on her heel and punch him in the jaw.

"…I don't trust this guy as far as I can throw him," Hunk was whispering to Shiro as she approached. "We ought to leave him with parts and just say, 'Adiós, amigo'."

"I second that idea," Mari agreed, deadpan. "Let's leave the creep."

"Changed your mind, already?" Hunk said, blinking at her in surprise. "That was fast."

"You too, Mari? You haven't even been around him for two minutes," Shiro said incredulously.

"And that's all the time I needed to decide that I don't like him."

"Hey, beautiful!" Rolo suddenly called over, and Mari's eye twitched involuntarily.

"'Beautiful'?" Shiro repeated quietly with a grimace, and Allura frowned in dismay.

"Do you think you could hunt down a length of thermal pipe about yay long?" Rolo continued, displaying the approximate length with his hands.

"I don't know what that is," Mari snapped back harshly, unable to keep a lid on her hostility, but her apparent temper only seemed to entertain the scavenger even more.

"Oh, well…I thought you knew considering you helped gather this stuff," he smirked, gesturing to the box of parts. "Sorry that I assumed you were familiar with this kind of stuff."

As Mari struggled not to retort, biting her lower lip and clenching her hands into fists at her sides, Hunk frowned as his eyes were drawn to the pipes that she had deposited next to the crate just minutes ago. "Uh, I think there are some thermal pipes right down there," he said, pointing to the pile next to the scavenger's foot, and Rolo glanced down in surprise.

"Ah. Didn't see that there," he muttered. "Thanks, bud!"

Mari groaned in annoyance and tiredly dragged one hand down her face. Behind Shiro, Keith smirked and said lightly, "So why is it that you don't like him, _beautiful_?"

"Ugh, it sounds even creepier when it's coming from you!" she cringed and he grinned in success.

"Sorry you feel that way, _beautiful_."

"Keith, I will literally strangle you if call me that again."

"All right, that's enough you two," Shiro quickly intervened, shutting both teens down with a pointed look. Then turning to Hunk he said, "We'll get going as soon as their ship is fixed. Just hang in there for a bit longer, okay?"

"Fine," he grumbled. "This better not take too long."

"Okay…I think I've got everything that I need," Rolo said, having moved all of the hardware he needed from the crate to the ground next to his ship. Addressing Hunk he continued, "Hey, bud! Mind if we get started on these repairs?"

"…Sure. Let's do this," Hunk sighed, and he joined the scavenger as a hatch on the side of the space craft slid open.

"You helping us, beautiful?" Rolo inquired of Mari. "I can show the ropes to this kind of stuff."

Letting out a curt growl, Mari firmly planted her butt on one of the cargo boxes next to the campfire. "Only if you want your ship to be permanently put out of commission," she replied through gritted teeth. "And I don't think either of our parties want that. The sooner you can leave, the better, right?"

"Ah, right," Rolo nodded, and he gave her one last grin before delving into his work with Hunk.

"That quiznaking son of a…Ugh, I hate guys like him!" Mari grumbled and Shiro sighed.

"I agree his… _advances_ towards you are a bit uncalled for, but you barely know him," he said. "You shouldn't be judging a book by it's cover."

"I wasn't!" she said in offense as her own words came back to haunt her.

"That's what it seems like," Keith muttered. Then with a smirk he barely uttered, " _Beautiful_."

And with his neck just barely out of reach, Mari settled on socking him hard in the arm. 

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****Please feel free to drop a comment/review down below! They're always appreciated and I'll do my best to respond to them :D**


	2. Chapter 2

****Author's note:** Soooooo…Sorry about the month long wait. Was caught up with school work… _again_. The Balmera chapters aren't really my favorite either so I was kinda unmotivated to reread them and edit them. I was also getting kinda distracted re-watching one of my favorite animes, Assassination Classroom…But anyways! Ah, Season 5…I'm gonna rant about it down below, so if you haven't watched it yet, ****SPOILER ALERT**** for after the chapter.

**I do not own Voltron: Legendary Defender!

* * *

Lance had gotten carried away with his attempts to swoon Nyma. He had taken her on a joyride in Blue, only to end up being handcuffed to a tree and helplessly watch as Nyma and Rolo stole his lion right in front of him. Fortunately, the right leg of Voltron was quickly recovered thanks to Keith's exceptional flying skills in Red, and Rolo, Nyma, and Beezer were left on the moon, their ship actually damaged this time.

"Told ya I wasn't judging a book by its cover," Mari smirked, nudging her brother twice in the ribs, and Shiro gave her an unamused look. They were finally heading towards the Balmera and the team had gathered on the bridge of the Castle to discuss their plan of action.

"Technically I told you that I wasn't judging a book by its cover _first_ …" Hunk muttered and she cast him an annoyed scowl.

"Okay, enough already! Both of you were right, the rest of us were wrong. We get it!" Lance huffed, slouching and folding his arms angrily over his chest.

"Someone's still hurting from his most recent rejection," Pidge noted and he pouted, grumbling indiscernibly under his breath.

"We'll be arriving at the Balmera soon," Allura announced. "Liberating these Balmerans from Zarkon's grasp will not be easy."

"So, what's the plan?" Lance asked, perking up immediately at the change of subject. "We go in there and just...pow, pow, pow! And free the prisoners?"

"What was that noise?" Keith raised a quizzical eyebrow in his direction.

"Laser guns," Lance replied, giving him a sly smile.

"No, Lance, I think you mean…POW! POW! POW!…POW!" Hunk said, imitating several cannon blasts.

"That sounds like fireworks," the Blue Paladin disagreed.

"Technically, they're more like...ba-choo, ba-choo, ba-choo!" Pidge chimed in, making a finger gun with her hands and pretending to fire it with each 'ba-choo'.

"Okay, enough with the bad sound effects," Shiro sighed. Then after a moment he added, "Besides, it's more like...blam, blam, blam!"

"What?"

"You're crazy."

"No way."

"Wrong."

"This is stupid."

"Everyone, _focus_ ," Allura urged, steering the group back on track.

"Besides, we can't just shoot at the Galra," Hunk said in all seriousness. "This Balmera, it's, like, alive. And from what we've seen, it doesn't look very good."

"Yes, it's an atrocity what the Galra have been doing to this grand beast," Coran agreed, bringing up a thermal image of the dying creature. "Stealing its crystals, its very life force, without ever performing the energy rejuvenation ceremonies to heal it."

"After seeing Shay's people enslaved, it made me realize how bad Zarkon really is. And we're the only ones who can stop him," Hunk insisted determinedly.

"Okay, so we can't go into the tunnels guns blazing," Shiro summed up. "Plan B. We figure out how to draw the Galra up to the surface and battle them out there."

"So we smoke them out," Mari nodded. "And how are we gonna do that without endangering the Balmerans beneath the surface?"

"We can attack all of this big exterior mining stuff," Hunk suggested. "The Galra troops will have to come out to defend it. We beat them up, head down to the tunnels, _boom!_ Voltron saves the day."

"But how will we know how many are left down in the tunnels?" Keith pointed out.

"We can track the Galra and the Balmerans using Biothermal Life Indicator Point Technology," Allura smiled as she brought up a hologram of a small oval-shaped tracking device.

"Oh, BLIP tech!" Pidge exclaimed, examining the hologram with great interest. When the princess gave her a confused look, she explained simply, "It's an acronym."

"One of you will need to fly around the Balmera and drop sensors into the shafts on each side," Allura said. "Then we'll be able to see where the Galra and the Balmerans are. There are already sensors built into your suits."

"I can do it," Pidge volunteered. "I just modified the Green Lion with the invisible maze's cloaking ability. I should be able to fly around unnoticed."

"That's their main power generator," Coran noted, pulling a picture of it up on screen. "If you take that down, it will severely weaken their defenses."

"Mari, Coran, and I will stay in cloud cover and give tactical support," Allura explained. "With the Castle's defenses weakened from Sendak's crystal, we won't be of much help to you."

"I'll take out the power generator," Shiro decided. "Keith, Lance, Hunk, you take out these big mining rigs around the area."

"Yeah! Okay, let's do this!" Hunk cheered. "Let's go kick some alien butt!"

* * *

Waiting on standby in the Castle was, as expected, not enjoyable. It had been almost a full varga since the paladins had gone down to the Balmera's surface with their lions, and there was still no word on whether or not they had found Shay. Coran and Allura occupied themselves with relaying instructions to the ground team on how to navigate through the inside of the Balmera, but Mari could only sit anxiously in the Black Paladin's chair and watch the action down below from the holoscreens being projected above Coran's control panel. The four space mice were curled up in her lap, perfectly content with using her as a cushion as they dozed, completely oblivious to the mission at hand.

Drumming her fingers against the arm rests, Mari sighed softly to herself and slumped in her seat. Watching the Earthling from her control platform, Allura frowned in disapproval.

"This is no time be taking a nap, Mari," she scolded and Mari instantly jolted in annoyance.

"I wasn't falling asleep," she huffed in reply, casting the princess a dry look over her shoulder. "I'm just bored. I feel so useless sitting here and waiting for this mission to be completed. Isn't there anything I can be doing to help you guys?"

Allura's expression softened and she smiled sadly, causing Mari to internally groan. With that pitiful look, she already knew that the next words coming out of the princess's mouth would be along the lines of "Thank you for the offer, but Coran and I already have everything under control." But before Allura could even voice her reply, the entire ship violently jolted forward, the sudden movement nearly knocking the Alteans off of their feet and almost causing Mari to fall out of her chair. The space mice were less fortunate though, and ended up tumbling to the floor in a series of startled squeaks.

"Looks like we've got company," Mari grimaced as a flurry of Galra fighters zipped past the Castle and began to pelt the ship with laser blasts. Multiple warning alarms began to go off and Allura nearly threw herself on top of her control pillars.

"Particle barrier up!" she called out and the protective energy shield was activated, surrounding the Castle from all sides. The countless beams of enemy fire exploded against the forcefield, each impact shaking the entire ship in the process.

"Is there anything I can do _now_?" Mari asked, having to shout to be heard over the din of of the attack.

"I'll prepare a defense drone for you," Allura relented, hurrying to activate one. "It will allow you to take down some of these fighters from the safety of the Castle, but it won't nearly be enough to destroy this entire fleet. You can buy us some time until the paladins return."

Then, as if on cue, Lance piped up over the comms, "Allura, can you please come get us?"

"How do you expect her to do that, genius?" Keith scoffed in the background.

"I don't know, maybe they got teleporters or something."

"Do you have teleporters on this ship?" Mari inquired of the two Alteans hopefully.

"I'm afraid not," Coran replied grimly. "Wouldn't that be something though? Ah, teleporters."

 _Your race made sentient lion ships, pods that can heal any kind of species from near death, and units to store and view memories, but you couldn't make teleporters?_ Mari thought dryly to herself as she watched him fret about his control panel.

"We're quite occupied at the moment," Allura grunted in response to Lance, and she winced as another critical blast shook the entire Castle. "We're completely surrounded by Galra ships and we're taking heavy fire!"

"Princess, our particle barrier won't last much longer!" Coran warned as his screens flashed red.

"Paladins, you need to get out of there as soon as you can!" Allura insisted. "Mari will be using a drone to hold them off for now, but we _will_ need your assistance!"

"This is it! We're going to die in here," Lance groaned miserably. "I can say bye-bye to that parade."

"Get it together, guys," Shiro urged. "Allura, we'll get there as soon as we can. Mari, listen to the princess and do your best getting rid of as many of those fighters as you can."

"Yes sir," she confirmed before the comms went silent.

"The defense drone is ready," Allura said, and several screens along with two holographic joysticks materialized in front of Mari. She firmly grasped the controls with both hands and the outside chaos appeared in front of her on her display.

"Use those controllers to move around and shoot," the princess instructed.

"Got it," Mari nodded, and she thrust the controls forward. A black and white disk-shaped drone immediately shot out from the Castle, its sights set on the nearest enemy fighter. Pressing the buttons to fire, a barrage of purple laser beams shot out of the drone, each one landing a direct hit on the Galran fighter before the tiny ship was destroyed in a fiery explosion.

"Nice," Mari grinned in approval as she moved onto her next target. "This is just like a video game."

During her last year of middle school, she had gone through a video gaming phase. Aaren and Magdalena had gotten her and Jia hooked on their Mercury Game Flux, and almost every weekend they'd goof off by playing new games on it. But as Mari entered high school and began to seriously prepare for her desired future at the Garrison, her addiction to the pastime quickly faded and it was replaced with studying, more martial arts lessons, and the occasional race once she had learned about drifting. She hadn't touched a controller in years until now, and despite the fact that she wasn't actually playing a video game—that this was real life and their lives were truly being endangered by hostile alien ships—a familiar and childish glee overcame her nonetheless.

She cut through the enemy fighters as fast and efficiently as she possibly could without getting herself destroyed. But even with the drone's speed and accuracy, it still wasn't enough to stop the entire fleet. Relentless blasts continued to pelt the Altean ship, weakening the particle barrier with every explosive collision.

Suddenly, several ships broke away from the cluster and they made a beeline for the Balmera before disappearing into the openings along the surface. "They're heading down into the tunnels!" Coran gasped. "They're going to steal the lions!"

"Don't worry, I've got them," Mari said, and she began to steer her drone away from the fleet to pursue the rogue Galra fighters.

"No! Continue to defend the Castle," Allura hurriedly ordered and the defense drone came to an abrupt halt.

"So you _don't_ want me to save the lions?" Mari looked at the princess in irritation, and Allura simply frowned in reply.

"I need you to stay here and deplete as much of the Galra's firepower as you can," she instructed sternly.

"But—"

"Listen to the princess, Mari!" Coran fretfully pleaded, and she huffed before guiding her drone back to the main fight.

"Paladins, the lions are in danger. You must get back to them immediately!" Allura began to address the others via their comms just as another blaring alarm was set off. "What is it now, Coran?"

"Princess, something's locked onto us," her advisor relayed and a massive Galran battleship appeared in front of them, its sights trained on the Castle of Lions.

"I don't think my tiny drone is gonna be able to beat that cruiser," Mari said, the dread beginning to build as she struggled to keep the smaller fighters at bay.

"Paladins, do you copy?" Allura asked, her increasing panic causing her voice to quiver ever so slightly. "There's a battle cruiser locked onto us. If it fires with its ion cannon, I don't know if we can survive."

"We're trying, Allura," Lance tried to reassure her. "Shay's pressing her hand against a wall, which apparently sends vibrations to the other rock people, who vibrate back or something? Hand talking? I guess the answer to your question is, 'Yes, we copy'."

Another volley of shots from the Galran fighters exploded against the particle barrier, and the entire Castle shook violently once again. The controls in Mari's hands fazed in and out of focus and the defense drone sparked dangerously.

"You might wanna wrap it up down there," Mari pressed, biting her lower lip anxiously. "I don't think I can hold off the rest of this fleet for much longer."

"Just hold out a few more minutes, Mari," Shiro urged. "We're on our way up."

Suddenly, a fighter shot past the drone and reared up behind it before pelting the small defense bot with relentless enemy fire. It took less than a second for the damaged drone to combust and be ripped to shreds, the controls and screen in front of Mari blipping out of existence.

"And I'm dead," she groaned, slumping in her seat in defeat. "Sorry bro, but we don't have a few more minutes to spare here."

"That's fine. We're coming out!"

The five lions shot out of the Balmera and sprang into action, obliterating Galran fighter after fighter as they defended the Castle. The sky was set alight with bursts of orange and yellow light as the enemy ships exploded, but just as quickly as they had been destroyed, they were replaced by new swarms. The lions were outnumbered and very much distracted, so the enemy cruiser took this opportunity to strike.

"It's charging its ion cannon!" Coran warned the princess as his screens zeroed in on the hefty artillery the enemy cruiser was packing.

"Divert all shields to the bow," Allura ordered and he quickly obliged, rearranging the particle barrier so that it was protecting the very front of the ship. The ion cannon fired not a second later and the high-energy beam slammed into the Castle's shield, the sheer power and intensity of blast shaking the whole ship and setting off the ship's 'EXTREME DANGER' alarms.

"Paladins, I need you immediately!" the princess alerted the others. "Five more ticks and we're finished!"

"Okay, team, let's form Voltron!" Shiro instructed and the rest of the paladins responded with an enthusiastic "Yeah!"

With Voltron assembled, the paladins proceeded to push the entire Galran warship further up in the air, diverting the ion cannon blast off of the Castle's particle barrier.

Coran turned to Allura quickly and shouted, "Right now is our chance, Princess!"

"Full power on the blasters!" she commanded and the targeting systems immediately materialized and aligned on her screen. "Locked onto target. Fire!"

The particle barrier collapsed and the bow of the ship was illuminated as a blue beam of pure energy shot from the Castle and sailed straight through the Galran warship. The resulting explosion was so powerful, it set off a chain reaction, obliterating the entire cruiser along with the rest of the surrounding fleet.

"Whoa!" Mari exclaimed, shielding her eyes from the intense light of the fiery detonation. "This ship is packing some major artillery!"

The princess cracked a tired yet relieved smile. "Thank you for your help, Mari," she said. "And thank you for following orders. If you hadn't been here to alleviate some of the damage we were taking, I'm not sure we would've lasted long enough for the paladins to arrive, let alone be able to fire our own blasters."

Mari smiled slightly. "It was no problem," she said, standing to stretch her tense limbs and joints. "Just glad I could finally help with something."

"Mission accomplished," Keith summed up over the comms.

"Thank God," Mari sighed in relief.

"And just in the tick of time," Allura said. "The Castle's defenses are battered and will need to fully recharge."

Suddenly, another alarm was triggered and the ship delved into high alert mode once more, every screen on the bridge flashing red repeatedly in warning.

"Oh great," Mari groaned, crossing her arms angrily over her chest. "What now?"

"There's an unknown object incoming!" Coran relayed and everyone's gaze locked onto the massive meteor-like structure careening through the cloudy atmosphere. "It's about to crash into the Balmera!"

The fireball slammed into the ground, stirring up clouds of dirt and sending chunks of rock flying, causing the already deeply wounded Balmera to moan in even more pain. Minutes later, when the dust had begun to settle, the team got a good look at what had plummeted into the mighty crystal-giving beast: a gigantic pod of Galran design, no doubt harboring some sort of nasty present from Zarkon himself.

"We can't get a break, can we?" Mari muttered to herself just as the coffin-like structure hissed and fell open.

* * *

**Please feel free to drop a comment/review down below! They're always appreciated and I'll do my best to respond to them :D

 ****WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!****

I liked Season 5 (heck, I like all the seasons), but I feel like too much was going on in such a short amount of time. In just 6 episodes, soooooo much stuff happened! Pidge and Matt found their father, Zarkon died, we learned more about Lotor's birth, Sendak's back, something is _seriously_ wrong with Shiro, Lance got more character development (YAY!), Keith found his mama (YAY!), Lotor's the new emperor, and there's this whole thing with the white lion and the legendary land of Altean alchemy. I'm also kinda annoyed that Keith's kamikaze attempt from Season 4 wasn't acknowledged at all (cuz that whole scene had me shook when I first watched it). But that reprogrammed fun-bot was hilarious xD

I still have so many questions though! xD What happened to the comet ships and the rest of the comet chunk? How did Krolia meet Keith's dad and why did she leave them? Will that new type of quintessence play a larger role in the series? And (like the rest of the fandom, I'm sure) what the _quiznak_ is up with Shiro?! Everything will most likely be answered in the upcoming seasons, so I'm excited for that. Hunk deserves some more love and character development too :D


	3. Chapter 3

****** I do not own Voltron: Legendary Defender!

* * *

From their position in the clouds, the Castle trio watched in anticipation as the sword and shield quickly materialized in Voltron's hands. The Galran pod opened with a loud hiss and the front half of it fell to the ground, revealing the beast that resided inside. The creature had long, dangling arms and multiple green beady eyes on its head, chest, and arms, all of which immediately trained on Voltron. From the eye on its torso, the monster fired a green laser beam at the giant mechanical man, the shot colliding with the shield and the force of the impact pushing Voltron backwards.

"What are we doing? We've gotta get down there and help them!" Mari urged, looking frantically between the two equally anxious Alteans.

"Give us a few more ticks. The particle barrier generator needs to recover a bit more," Coran said. "We don't know yet how powerful that beast is and I would rather not risk engaging in battle with it unprotected."

Below them, Voltron tripped and fell and the shield flew from its grasp. The five lions split apart to take on the creature, only to be bombarded by multiple laser beams that their foe began to fire from the cannons on its arms.

"I'm afraid we cannot wait any longer. The paladins need out help," Allura decided quickly. "Particle barrier up!"

The Castle's shield appeared once more and several warning screens popped up over Coran's control panel. Ignoring them though, the princess proceeded to lower the ship through the clouds towards the ongoing battle beneath them.

"Blasters locked on target," Allura announced, as her screens focused on the Galran monster. "…Fire!"

The attack took the creature off guard as the blast caught it in the back. It was knocked off balance for the briefest of moments and it halted its deadly light show so it could focus on the castle-ship above it. Without missing a beat, the monster retaliated and relentlessly fired one of its laser cannons at the ship, causing the whole Castle to violently shake and tilt dangerous.

"Where does Zarkon get these beasts from?" Allura wondered aloud in exasperated disbelief. "And how do they keep finding us?"

"Princess, the particle barrier won't sustain much longer," Coran alerted her. "It's still not at full strength after the blast from the Galra ship. I knew we should've given it a few more dobashes!"

On screen, the Red Lion was charging towards the creature, drawing its attention away from the Castle while the Black Lion attempted to strike from behind. But before Shiro could land a blow, one of the beast's eye canons swiveled around its head and fired at the Black Lion, causing it to reel back to safety.

"We need to find its blind spot!" Keith said frustratedly, tapping into the Castle comms to relay this objective.

"No duh! Are you saying you _haven't_ been trying to do that since that thing landed?" Mari huffed in response and the Red Paladin tsked.

"I didn't ask for your input!" he snapped.

"And I didn't think I needed your permission to provide it," she fired back. "I'm practicing my freedom of speech, jerk."

"Geez, you are so _annoying_!"

"And you're an asshole!"

"Knock it off you two!" Shiro ordered sternly, and the quarreling duo obediently shut their mouths.

"What do we do? Fighting this thing is like fighting an entire fleet at once!" Pidge growled, bringing everyone's attention back to the issue at hand.

"I think we've got to aim for those laser eyes and take them out," Keith ventured to provide his input again.

"And what exactly is your plan for taking them out?" Mari challenged him, raising a doubtful eyebrow. "None of the lions have even managed to make a dent in that monster."

"We just need to draw its fire, have it focus on one spot so the lions can attack the eyes," Allura chimed in before Keith could respond, snuffing another potential bickering episode between their two resident hotheads.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? The particle barrier's already on the verge of collapse," Mari reminded her, but the princess simply shook her head grimly.

"I know, but…It's our only option right now," Allura admitted. "Paladins, we'll cover you from up here! All Castle blasters lock onto that beast and fire at will!"

Responding to her commands without hesitation, the lions pulled back as the Castle began to pelt the beast with more laser blasts. But the monster remained unaffected by the seemingly feeble attacks, getting more irritated than injured as it turned and trained all of its lasers on the castle-ship before firing them all at once. The Castle lurched upon impact and a million more alarms were set off in the bridge as a flurry of beeping red screens popped up over Coran's control panel.

"We've lost the spectral generator! Going to reserve! There's a fire in VIN bay three! Suppressors on! Suppressors out!" the older Altean fretted, his panic increasing with every new alert that appeared on screen. "Princess, the ship is being torn apart!"

Clutching the back of the Black Paladin's chair as the ship quivered and quaked, Mari shouted to be heard over the din of the alarms, "We have to get out of here!"

"No! We cannot abandon the paladins!" Allura insisted.

"No, she's right!" Shiro piped up over the comms. "Princess, pull back! Get out of its range, now!"

"We will _not_ abandon you!" she stubbornly continued to protest.

"You're not abandoning us," Shiro said. "We're about to pull back anyway."

"We are?" Hunk asked.

"We can't hold out. We have to," Shiro confirmed. "Lions, to the mine shafts. It's the only place the monster can't get us."

"Roger that!" Pidge replied, steering her lion to safety.

"Fine. We're heading into orbit," Allura relented, her tone radiating dismay. She pulled the Castle back into the upper layer of the atmosphere and the ship disappeared amongst the clouds once more.

* * *

The Castle hovered listlessly over the pea-green colored clouds of the Balmera, its systems cooling down after the intense battle. Having been taken out of harms way, the particle barrier had been deactivated and Coran went to work shutting off the alarms.

Mari sighed and sat back down in the Black Paladin's chair. How were they going to beat that monster? With its all-seeing laser eyes, it was practically untouchable. It was obvious that they needed Voltron, but it was nearly impossible for the giant robot to fight that beast without inflicting damage upon the Balmera.

"So…What's the plan?" Mari asked, breaking the silence with the big question. "How do we beat that creature _and_ protect the Balmera?"

"Those are questions I do not have the answers to," Allura sighed bitterly. "Not yet, anyways."

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but our efforts to preserve the Balmera might have been all for naught," Coran sadly informed them. "My scans indicate that the mighty beast has begun to collapse."

"What?!" Allura and Mari exclaimed in unison just as Shiro's face popped up on screen.

"Coran, Allura, Mari, are you there?" he asked.

"Shiro, we're here," Allura nodded.

"The Balmera—" he began, but Coran cut him off.

"We already know. Our scanners are showing the life energy draining from the Balmera," the older Altean said, pulling up a thermal image that displayed the warmth of life fading from the planet-like creature.

"How does that happen?" Pidge spoke over the comms.

"Removing crystals from a Balmera is like removing a vital part of the mighty beast," Coran explained solemnly. "The Balmera needs time to regenerate itself to stay healthy, but the Galra's greed may have cost this noble Balmera its life."

"So, what's gonna happen?" Hunk asked.

"The core will collapse, destabilizing the entire skeletal structure," Coran continued. "Anything or anyone remaining on the Balmera at that point will be crushed into dust."

"How long before its core collapses?" Shiro inquired.

"Probably a matter of hours," Coran estimated. "The mighty organism willingly gives itself to all, but not all return its kindness."

"Then our time is short. We'll evacuate the planet," Allura decided. "We need to get all the Balmerans to the Castle of Lions before the planet implodes."

"Okay, that sounds like a good plan, but how on earth do you plan on landing the Castle with that monster-thingy on the surface?" Hunk pointed out, his worried expression coming into focus on screen.

"You'll need a distraction," Pidge surmised, appearing on screen as well.

"We'll engage the beast in our lions. With it distracted, Allura and Coran will land the Castle and load all of its citizens," Shiro concluded.

" _Or_ we could load Balmerans into our lions a few at a time and shuttle them to the ship," Lance suggested, leaning into view next to Pidge. "Y'know, no engaging ferocious laser-eye guy."

"Lance, that's not going to work. It'll take too long," Mari shot him down with a shake of her head. "Don't be a coward about this."

"Uh, I wasn't asking _you_ , Mari," Lance chided lightly and she rolled her eyes. "Anyways, how long would that take, _Coran_?"

"Days?" he guessed with a half-hearted shrug. "Weeks?"

"We only have hours," Keith stated flatly.

"Told you it wouldn't work. We don't have a lot of time here, so stop being a baby about it and just be the distraction," Mari chided and Lance scowled at her before sulking out of view, grumbling all the while.

"Look, we don't need to beat this thing," Shiro sighed. "We just need to bait it away from the ship. Provoke and evade."

"Okay, here's the thing. I'm worried that we're going to be really, really good at the provoking part, and then like _really_ bad at the evading part," Hunk said hesitantly. "But if this is what it takes to save Shay and everyone on the planet, then I'm in."

"Can you contact the other Balmerans?" Keith asked of Shay.

"I can, but I know not what they'll say," Shay answered from somewhere off screen. "Leave the planet? Our home?"

"It's the only option," Allura said. Then after a moment she added, "I'm coming down."

"Princess, no!" Coran objected instantly. "It's too dangerous!"

"Someone has to be there to lead these people out," she said firmly.

"You're coming down? That thing will spot your pod and blow it to pieces!" Pidge exclaimed.

"Let me worry about that," Allura replied, turning to leave the bridge. "You just focus on keeping the creature distracted. Mari, help Coran in any way that you can. I'll contact you when I'm on the ground."

* * *

Remaining on standby in the Castle, Coran and Mari waited with bated breath as Allura departed. They watched on screen as the lions valiantly protected the princess from the robeast as she angled her pod down towards the Balmera's surface. When she had landed safely without any problems, she had provided some powerful words of wisdom and encouragement to the Balmerans planet-wide before the evacuation was set into motion. With the Balmerans moving towards the surface, Coran prepared to land the Castle.

"Castle of Lions, coming in!" he relayed via the comms as he zeroed in on a landing spot.

"How are you guys holding up?" Mari inquired of the paladins.

"I think we've got him pretty distracted," Keith responded. "Are the Balmerans in position?"

"They're making their way to the top," Allura confirmed and Coran proceeded to carefully ground the ship.

Once the Castle was safely on the surface, Coran turned to Mari and instructed, "Stay here and watch over things. I'm going down to help the princess."

"W-Wait, _seriously_?" Mari stammered, scrambling to her feet as Coran hurried past her towards the bridge doors. "But I don't know how any of this tech works! What if something goes wrong?"

"When in doubt, just fire the blasters! Use that big circular button in the center of the panel to activate them," Coran instructed much too cheerfully as he pointed to his controls. "But otherwise, don't worry about it! Everything will turn out just fine."

"That's terrible advice!" Mari began to argue, but he was already gone, leaving her alone in the Castle of Lions.

"For the love of God…" she groaned, anxiously hovering over Coran's control panel. "'Here Mari! Just watch over our ten thousand year old and highly advanced ship by yourself. Don't worry about not being able to operate it or anything. You'll be fine, just shoot the lasers if there's a problem! Pew, pew, pew!' Yeah, _great_ idea, Coran!"

She worriedly glanced up at the screens displaying the chaos going on outside and grimaced at the destruction. The Balmera was beginning to crumble, collapsing in on itself as its skeletal structure gave way. Off in the distance, the five Voltron lions were continuing in their struggle to distract the monster. They wouldn't be able to hold it off for long, and the beast's attention was being drawn towards the Castle more and more with each passing second, like it was losing interest in fighting the lions and deemed the grounded ship the more dangerous threat.

"If that thing fires on the Castle, I'm screwed," Mari groaned in frustration. "Man, why didn't Coran tell me how to put up the particle barrier instead?"

Suddenly, the crystal embedded in the ceiling over Allura's control platform began to glow and emit a comforting warmth. Her heart rate increasing with her concern, Mari pressed the button that would open communications with the two Alteans down on the surface. "Allura, Coran, something's up with the crystal," she said, struggling to keep the panic out of her voice. "It just started glowing. It's not going to blow up, is it?"

"There's nothing to worry about, Number Five," Coran assured her. "It's reacting to being closer to the Balmera. It's revitalizing this area of the mighty beast."

"Oh…Okay?"

"This means that the Balmera can still be saved," Coran proceeded to explain. "The princess is going to perform an Altean ceremony to re-infuse the Balmera with quintessence. If she succeeds, we won't have to evacuate the planet."

"That's a relief," Mari admitted, letting out a quiet sigh. That would take care of one major crisis. Now all that was left for them to worry about was the robeast. Diverting her attention to the screens once more, Mari immediately inhaled sharply and her heart nearly frozen inside her chest: the monster was quickly approaching the ship and the lions were nowhere to be seen.

Terror settling in, Mari instinctively went to fire the blasters, her hand shaking slightly as it hovered over the controls. Every nerve in her body screamed for her hand to come down, to shoot at the beast that was making this rescue mission so much more difficult for the team to complete. But with her lack of knowledge on how to operate the Castle, could she even control the lasers? Coran had told her which button to press to activate the cannons, but how would she be able to aim them? What if she messed up and accidentally shot the dying Balmera instead? And what if activating the laser cannons somehow interfered with the ritual Allura was currently preparing for? No, she couldn't risk doing it. Too much could go wrong.

Gritting her teeth as her fear and anger flared, Mari nearly punched a hole in the control panel as she slammed her fist against the comm link button. "Guys! Where are you?! That monster is getting a little too close for comfort!" she shouted urgently, hoping to God that the five paladins would be able to hear her.

On screen, the beast lifted its arms, generating a green sphere of sparking energy as it prepared to fire a supercharged beam that would no doubt blow a hole through the Castle of Lions. But before it could release the damaging blast, Voltron suddenly dropped from the sky and shot the beast, causing it to stumble back as the giant robot landed protectively in front of the Castle.

"It's about time!" Mari cried out in relief. "What the hell took you guys so long?"

"Sorry we're late," Shiro apologized.

"Had to step out for a bit to form Voltron," Pidge said.

"I can see that," Mari nodded. "Please tell me you guys have an actual plan on how to beat this thing?"

"Don't worry, Mari, I (think) I've got this," Hunk tried to assure her. "Okay, Yellow. _Now_ form thingy!"

There was a solid click as Hunk thrust his bayard into the corresponding plug next to the Yellow Lion's central controls, and a massive shoulder cannon instantly materialized on Voltron's right shoulder. The robeast hissed furiously and raised its arms again to attack, releasing a green beam at the giant robot. Voltron's new shoulder cannon powered up and fired a blue laser at the monster, the two beams meeting in the middle in a thunderous collision. Green light swirled with blue in a massive ball of scorching hot energy, but it was obvious that Voltron's artillery was still no match for the beast's eyes and it took seconds for its lasers to overpower the shoulder cannon.

"It's not enough!" Shiro grunted.

"We'll have to try something else!" Hunk agreed.

Changing the angle of the cannon ever so slightly, the green beam soared past the Castle, Voltron having just barely been able to deflect the blast away from the ship. The entire structure quivered and Mari held onto the control panel to maintain her balance.

The robeast was fully focused on Voltron now and it turned away from the Castle as watched the giant robot take to the skies before firing a volley of shots at it. Voltron nimbly dodged the attacks and formed the shoulder cannon once more before using it to fire a series of smaller laser beams at the monster, taking out the laser eyes on its arms. The creature screeched and sank to its knees, shocked by the blow it had received.

"Nice!" Mari grinned, clapping her hands together. "Good, good, this is good. We're winning! Keep it up you guys."

Suddenly, the crystal in the ceiling was completely absorbed in light and the entirety of the Balmera's surface glowed a sparkling blue. The hairs on the back of Mari's neck stood on end and a shiver ran down her spine as her entire body tingled with an unfamiliar energy. But as soon as the phenomenon had begun, it passed, and the strange feeling faded away as the Balmera dimmed to its original earthy color.

"What. The heck. Was _that_?" Mari whispered, rubbing her arms fervently to get the goosebumps to go away. Had that strange sensation come from the Altean ceremony Allura was performing? It must've been. The real question was, had it worked? The Balmera's surface looked no different than it had five minutes ago, but the screens displaying the activity down below showed no more signs that the planet-sized creature was still collapsing.

Outside, the fallen robeast had risen to its feet again and had begun firing desperately at Voltron with its remaining laser. But the mighty robot was too quick and it wasn't long before it got close enough to land the final blow. Bringing back the Red Lion arm, Voltron punched the beast in its central eye, sending it flying backwards in a brilliant explosion. The beast landed on its back in defeat, the light slowly fading from the eyes on its head.

"Yes!" Mari cheered, pumping one fist in the air victoriously as Voltron split into the five lions and they landed on the Balmera's surface to meet with Coran and Allura. "That was awesome! Congratulations, you gu—!"

Her mini celebration was cut short as the ground began to shake again and the robeast suddenly rose to its feet _again_ , its central eye glowing anew as it prepared to fire at the Castle. There was no way the paladins would be able to make it back to their lions let alone form Voltron in time to stop the creature from firing. They were all so very, _very_ dead. Unless…

Moving swiftly, Mari pressed the large button that would activate the lasers. A new screen popped up displaying the robeast outside, and with shaking fingers, she quickly aligned all of the targeting circles over the monster. The circles blinked twice as they locked onto their target and another button on the control panel began to rapidly flash red, indicating that the blasters were ready to fire. Without hesitation, Mari slammed her hand on top of the control and the whole Castle vibrated as the familiar whine of the cannons powering up echoed throughout the bridge.

A single blue beam shot from the tip of the ship and it collided with the robeast's fleshy head, disintegrating it into nothing in the blink of an eye upon impact. The monster's body stiffened and the blast it had been building up suddenly flickered and began to lose its form just as the Balmera let out a grateful moan. Huge chunks of blue crystal erupted from the ground around the robeast's feet and began to crawl up its legs, a particularly sharp shard completely impaling the monster in the chest in the process. The creature's central eye shattered and the remnants of its final attack were snuffed out as the rest of its body was rapidly encased in thick layers of Balmera crystal.

The bridge was deathly silent as Mari stood frozen to the spot, her mouth agape as she stared as the imprisoned robeast on screen. She…she had just single-handedly _beheaded_ that thing! And the Balmera, it—it had just effortlessly imprisoned that monster, protecting all of them from its destruction for good.

"Holy crow," Mari squeaked, taking a shaky breath as she leaned heavily against the control panel. "That—That actually just happened."

Then all at once, the comms roared to life and all five paladins appeared on screen, with Allura, Coran, and even Shay squeezing into frame as they all began to speak excitedly.

"Holy crow, Mari! What the cheese was _that_?"

"You and the Balmera completely wrecked that thing!"

"That was freaking _insane_! And I mean that in a good way, of course."

"Nice job."

"See? I told you, Number Five. When in doubt, just fire the blasters. I'm glad you followed my advice. And at the perfect time, too!"

"Coran, I cannot believe you told her to do that. That was incredibly dangerous! She doesn't know how to properly operate the Castle. What if something had gone wrong? What if she had missed?"

"My apologies, princess, but it was an emergency situation. I assure you it will not happen again."

"Well, what matters is that we're all safe and that thing has been defeated," Shiro said, a small smile playing his lips. "Nice work, sis."

Holding up a weak thumbs up, Mari managed a half-hearted, "No problem."

"Aw yeah!" Lance cheered giddily. "Bring on the victory celebration!"

Chuckling lightly, Mari sunk to the floor, her knees weak with relief. She sat there for a moment, taking deep breaths in an attempt to calm her frazzled nerves. "Oh thank God this is all finally over," she laughed to herself. "First mission accomplished."

* * *

 ****** Please feel free to leave a comment/review down below! They're always appreciated and they're very motivating!


	4. Chapter 4

****Author's note:** So since today is Mariko's birthday (April 14th—see her profile), here's a new chapter as my way of celebrating. Yay! And for anyone following my other story, _Takashi to Mariko_ , I'll also be uploading a new chapter to that as well sometime later today. Double uploads, double yays! xD

Also, I've created a Tumblr and I'll be posting sketches I've made for this fanfic. I'll probably be posting my artwork for other fandoms as well at some point in the future (once I make something I'm actually proud of anyways lol). But right now I only have one pic of Mari on there, so if you're interested in seeing it I'll have the link attached to this chapter on the Archive of Our Own version of this story.

Also, if anyone wants to give me tips on how to use Tumblr, it would be much appreciated (cuz I'm still trying to figure out how it works xD).

 ****I do not own Voltron: Legendary Defender!**

* * *

Balmerans old and young gathered on the surface of the Balmera as they joyously thanked their saviors for freeing them from Zarkon's forces. Bonfires were lit and food was prepared and there was much dancing and laughter all around as the celebration commenced. It wasn't exactly the parade Lance had been hoping for, but he was pleased nonetheless.

Despite her exhausted state, Allura had refused to return to her chambers in the Castle to rest, insisting upon staying for the festivities. So with the princess reclining on a makeshift bed of cushions (of which Coran had graciously brought down to the surface from the Castle), the rest of the team and Shay's family sat near her in front of their own personal fire.

Hunk stayed noticeably close to Shay all throughout the festivities, indulging her by eating several bowls of cave root and cave bug stew, admiring the newly grown crystals that were poking out of the ground, sitting next to her as he told her about Earth and their previous adventures on Arus. He even had begun dancing around the fire with her, the duo giggling as they ungracefully moved to the rhythm of the music.

"Aw, look at the big guy," Lance cooed, plopping down on the ground next to Pidge and Mari. "He looks so happy with her. She even got him to dance."

"That's the magic of having a boyfriend or _GIRLFRIEND_ ," Pidge teased loudly enough for Hunk to hear, and he shot her an annoyed look before quickly averting his attention back to Shay. "They bring out the better sides of you. Sometimes, at least."

"Mullet over here really needs to find his significant other then," Lance said, jabbing a thumb at Keith. "From what I've seen, he only has two sides: rude and gloomy."

Keith's eye twitched and Lance grinned at him challengingly. Before a fight could break out between them, Mari casually intervened, "It's the opposite then with you, Lance. You need to find someone to help keep all of your sides under control. Is that why you're always flirting with almost every girl you meet?"

The Blue Paladin made and offended sound. "No! And nothing's wrong with having a bunch of different sides to your personality!"

"I never said there was," she rolled her eyes. "I'm just saying you can be really unpredictable and it's a bit—"

"Annoying," Keith instantly provided and Lance glowered at him.

"No, it's not annoying," Mari huffed, shooting the Red Paladin a pointed look. "It can just be a bit… _overwhelming_ sometimes."

"Oh, I see. You can't handle all of _this_?" Lance smirked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively as he gestured to himself. "Don't worry, Mari. You're not the first girl who's felt that way about Lancey Lance. It's okay, it's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Gross! As if!" she cringed, nearly gagging on her "cave juice" as Shay had dubbed it. "Keep dreaming, 'Lancey Lance'!"

"Maybe annoying _was_ the right word," Pidge muttered, her glasses glinting as she pushed them further up the bridge of her nose.

"Hey!" Lance pouted. "I was just kidding, you know!"

"It was still annoying," Keith said.

"No one asked you, Mullet," Lance growled back at him.

"Numbers Three through Six, what are you doing just sitting there?" Coran suddenly called over from the dance circle that had formed around the fire. He had been getting his groove on with Shay's grandmother just moments ago, and had paused mid-twirl to wave them over. "Come over and celebrate! Let loose!"

A giddy grin spreading across his face, Lance hopped to his feet excitedly. "Ha ha yeah!" he cheered. "Let's go you guys!"

"You mean dance?" Pidge grimaced. "Yeah, no thanks."

"Aw come on! We can't be any worse than Hunk," he tried to persuade her. "Let's go join the fun!"

Before Pidge could argue, Lance grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her to her feet, dragging her to the dance circle. She tried to squirm free from his grip and escape back to the safety of the sidelines, but he was still much stronger than her and he easily spun her around before dipping her.

" _Hola señorita,_ " he spoke suavely, putting on his most charming smile. " _Bailarás conmigo?_ "

"I have no clue what you're saying to me," Pidge stated flatly, looking very unamused if not rather pissed off.

" _Eso no es un no_!" Lance laughed and Pidge let out an angry squeal as he proceeded to sweep her around the fire, the pair quickly getting lost in the circle of other dancing couples.

"She's going to kill him as soon as he lets go of her," Mari chuckled and a huff of laughter escaped Keith's lips.

"You're not going to dance, then?" he asked, casting her a wry smile.

"Not much of a dancer, I'm afraid," she replied, crossing her legs in front of her in finality. "I don't have anyone to dance with anyways."

Keith was quiet for a moment and Mari took another long sip of her cave juice to fill the silence.

"Too bad _Aaren's_ not here," he drawled finally, and she nearly spit out her drink.

"W- _What_? " Mari spluttered in between coughs as the juice went down the wrong tube.

Keith suppressed a grin. "I'm sure you'd be willing to dance with him."

"I think the quiznak not!"

"You know, you never did explain who he is to you," he continued to prod. "Or what you were doing kissing him."

"Uh, he kissed me, not the other way around," Mari was quick to correct him. "And why do you care all of a sudden? Did my brother put you up to this?"

When Keith just responded with a small smirk, she let out an irritated sigh but found herself explaining anyways. "Okay, look: Aaren was— _is_ my friend Magdalena's younger brother. We were classmates and good friends until he told me he liked me in a romantic sense. I responded that I didn't see him that way, he put distance between us, and we grew apart. The day before we found Takashi and we were all launched into space, he reached out to me again. I met up with him and we caught up on the past few years, and then without warning he just…you know, he—he leaned in and kissed me."

"You don't have any romantic feelings for him then?"

"Absolutely none," Mari deadpanned. "God, just thinking about what he did makes me so damn pissed off! I can't believe I left myself so open and vulnerable like that!"

Keith rolled his eyes. "It was just a kiss. Get over it."

"It was not 'just a kiss'!" she snapped back. "It was random and unwanted and I felt violated. I was starting to open back up to him hoping that we could be friends again and he took advantage of my moment of weakness."

"Whatever. I think you're just overreacting."

"Shut up. I just wanted my first kiss to be special, that's all," she muttered sourly.

"Didn't think you'd be into that kind of stuff," Keith hummed in thought. "That 'special first kiss' kind of stuff, I mean."

"Well, I'm not anymore," she grumbled. "Aaren ruined that for me…I hope he dies in a hole."

"Who do you want to 'die in a hole'?" The duo looked up to see Shiro approaching them, a small smile gracing his features.

"No one," Mari groaned, and when Shiro looked to Keith for an explanation, the Red Paladin simply shrugged.

"Okay…" he drawled, grunting softly as he sat down next to the teens.

"How's Allura doing?" Keith wondered—Shiro had been keeping her company ever since the celebration started.

"She's hanging in there," he said, glancing towards the reclining princess as she chatted with three Balmeran children. Her smile was tired and she looked pale, having barely enough energy to lift her head off the pillows and maintain a coherent conversation.

"She looks like she's going to collapse," Keith noted and Shiro sighed.

"I'm trying to convince her to call it a night and get some rest, but she won't listen."

"That's just Allura for you, I guess," Mari said.

"Reminds me of someone else I know," Shiro teased, nudging her gently in the ribs, and she frowned at him.

"I am nothing like Allura."

"You're both irritatingly stubborn, you both always think you're right," Keith murmured, and Mari would've punched him if he wasn't wearing his armor.

"Like you're one to talk," she scoffed and Shiro laughed lightly as Keith scowled at her.

The jovial music that had been filling the air faded away as the song ended, and the dancers around the fire dispersed to take a break. Lance and Pidge came into view once more, the latter looking annoyed yet flustered as she stomped over to the group. Lance seemed to be in an equally dour mood, pouting as he cupped his hand to his slapped-red left cheek.

"What happened to you two?" Shiro asked, a hint of concern in his tone. "You guys looked like you were having fun out there just a minute ago."

"I wouldn't call being swung around like a rag doll and being forced to listen to terrible pickup lines for the past five minutes _fun_ ," Pidge almost growled, sitting down with an _oof_ next to Mari.

"Hey, don't lie! You were laughing and smiling for at least half of the dance!" Lance exclaimed, and she shot him a deadly look that made him flinch.

"Well, do that again and I'll do more than just slap you," she threatened and he stifled a fearful yelp. He scooted closer to Shiro for protection before glancing around the bonfire.

"I wonder where Hunk went," he observed out loud and the others scanned the area for the Yellow Paladin as well. The big guy seemed to have completely disappeared…along with Shay. Then, as if on cue, the Yellow Lion emerged from the Castle before casually gliding through the air away from the area of celebration.

"Oh, nuh uh!" Lance gasped exasperatedly. "No quiznaking way!"

"Oh my gosh, he's pulling a Lance!" Pidge clutched her stomach as she hunched over in laughter.

"After all his scolding for what I did with Nyma, he turns around and does the same thing with Shay?!" he exclaimed incredulously, glaring in the direction that the Yellow Lion had flown. "Unbelievable!"

"Yeah, but unlike Nyma we can actually trust Shay," Mari pitched in and Lance groaned miserably.

"What're they even planning on doing?" he mumbled sourly.

"I believe Number Two mentioned taking Shay to watch the sunrise," Coran provided as he approached the group. "It will be her first time seeing one and Hunk wanted to find the perfect spot to view it with her."

"Awwww! Hunk's such a good guy," Lance couldn't help but grin and the others nodded in agreement. The group was quiet for a moment, everyone staring contentedly at the fire. The music had started up again and couples were beginning to recreate their dance circle, but no one made a move to join them.

"So…We've completed our first mission and freed everyone on the Balmera," Pidge said hesitantly, breaking the short silence with the change in subject. "What do we do now?"

It was a loaded question. What _would_ they do now? It's not like they could go straight up to Zarkon's HQ and challenge him to a battle, freeing the universe and getting it done and over with in one fell swoop. Although Mari wished it was that simple, their team was nowhere near ready to directly take on the emperor himself.

"We can't do anything," Shiro finally decided. "Not until Allura completely recovers, at least. We need her to be at full strength before we can take on another mission, so for now we'll just wait."

"That sounds boring," Lance moaned. "What are we supposed to do until then?"

"Well, we have yet to confront Sendak," Coran pointed out, reminding everyone that the Galran commander was still frozen in the Castle's basement. "I can hook him up to a memory extraction unit for interrogation."

"That sounds good," Shiro agreed. "I think we should do some team training as well. We're all still getting used to our lions and we clearly need to practice with Voltron some more."

"Yeah, we couldn't even kill that thing," Pidge agreed, glancing towards the horizon at the robeast encased in Balmera crystals.

"Ooh! I know the perfect training grounds for you and your lions then," Coran said cheerfully. "The original paladins often trained there. We can set a course for it tomorrow if you'd like."

"That would be great, Coran, thanks," Shiro nodded. Then addressing the others he clarified, "All right then. Tomorrow will be a day of training. After that, we'll try to get whatever information we can out of Sendak. Hopefully we'll find something in his memories that can point us in the next direction and get us one step closer to defeating Zarkon."

* * *

Sorry if my Spanish is off/incorrect. I haven't practiced it in about a year now xD

 ****Please feel free to leave a comment/review down below! They are much appreciated :D**


	5. Chapter 5

****Author's note:** Hello! Sorry I haven't posted in over 2 months. Life and lack of motivation have just been getting in the way sooooo...yeah. Anyways, season 6 was AWESOME! I loved it!

 ****I do not own Voltron: Legendary Defender!**

* * *

When Shiro had said "we should do some team training", Mari quickly learned that what he had really meant was "the _paladins_ should do some team training". With Coran accompanying them, all five lions were headed for the Karthulian System, leaving her behind on the quiet Castle with the bedridden princess and the four space mice.

Mari understood fully well why she couldn't come along: she didn't have a lion and, according to Coran, she'd need one to survive the hazardous training grounds of old. There wouldn't have been any point in her just tagging along and she had accepted this truth without any complaints. But what Shiro had said to her before departing was what was really ticking her off:

 _"I know you'll want to hit the training deck as soon as we leave and that's fine, but…I really want you to do a different form of training today as well,"_ he had said slowly, carefully.

Mari had raised a suspicious eyebrow at him then, her arms already folding over her chest defensively. _"And what is it?"_ she tried not to groan.

 _"Um. Well…"_ Shiro sighed as he steeled himself. _"I want you to watch over Allura. Help her out if she needs anything and make sure she's okay."_

 _"You want me to babysit?!"_ she hissed furiously. _"What the hell kind of training is that?"_

 _"You really need to start minding your language…"_

 _"I'm not babysitting a ten thousand year old alien princess!"_

 _"You're not babysitting her, just keeping her company,"_ Shiro said. _"Think of this as a bonding exercise."_

 _"And what if I'm not in a 'bonding' mood?"_

 _"Mari…Please?"_

 _"Ugh…"_

 _"For the team?"_

 _"Nhnnn…"_

 _"For me?"_

 _"Grrr! Okay, fine!"_

"This…is so…STUPID!" Mari grunted, nimbly parrying the Gladiator's jabs before firmly impaling it. The robot froze in place for a moment before glowing a dim blue and disappearing into thin air, the level having been passed. Straightening, she panted slightly and wiped the sweat from her brow before retracting the spear tip at the end of her staff and reverting the weapon back to its portable size. She clipped it onto her hip and shuffled over to the fresh towel waiting for her at the edge of the deck, plucking it off the ground before burying her glistening face into the soft fabric. Taking a glance at her phone, the time indicated that she had been practicing for at least an hour now. The paladins plus Coran had yet to return to the Castle, and Mari sighed to herself in mild annoyance.

"I guess I'd better check on Allura," she mumbled, draping her towel around her shoulders before heading out of the training deck and starting down the hall towards the princess's quarters.

It wasn't that Mari didn't like Allura, but they just seemed too different when it came to interests, personality, and ideals. The atmosphere felt awkward whenever the two were alone together, both of them always unsure of what to say to the other. But Allura was a teammate, a part of their new little space family, and thanks to Shiro's guilt-tripping, Mari felt obligated to at least _try_ to connect with her.

 _Okay, okay, you can do this. You can get through this_ , she tried to motivate herself as she turned another corner. _It's just talking, girl-to-girl…well, human girl-to-ten thousand year old alien_ woman _, I guess…Grrr come on! You talked all the time with Maggie and Jia. This shouldn't be any different with Allura._

Suddenly, peals of shrill laughter pierced the air and the princess came whipping around the corner on a cushioned hovering chair. It was being easily propelled by the space mice, but it was blatantly obvious that the four small creatures had little to no control over steering as the chair rammed into the walls repeatedly. And at the speed it was currently going, it was also very apparent that the mice had no way of stopping the thing as it barreled towards Mari.

The space mice squeaked in alarm upon noticing the Earthling in their path and they quickly clambered up onto the chair. Her adrenaline levels spiking in the face of danger, Mari jumped out of the way just in the tick of time, pressing herself flat against the wall as the hover chair zipped by **.** It rounded another corner, sending the chair and its five riders into a dizzying spin before careening onto the bridge and crashing to a halt.

Mari stood there stiffly for a moment, her heart pounding rapidly as she tried to comprehend what the heck had just happened. Catching her breath, her fear slowly subsided and was immediately replaced by high levels of irritation as she realized she had almost been run over by a chair. A freaking _chair_. Angrily peeling herself off the wall, she hurried onto the bridge to see Allura giggling uncontrollably as her hover seat wobbled to a stop in front of Coran's control panel.

 _Patience yields focus,_ Mari could practically hear her brother reminding her as she stomped closer to the princess. _Patience yield focus, patience yields focus._

"Allura, what the hel—"

 _You really need to start minding your language._

"…Allura, what the… _quiznak_ are you doing?" Mari asked through clenched teeth, her tone tight and low.

"Oh! Hello, Mari," the princess beamed giddily as she turned to face the fuming Earthling. "I was just having a bit of fun with the mice."

"Yeah, I noticed. You almost ran me over," she replied coolly.

"Oh, did we? My apologies," Allura said, her smile turning sheepish.

"Aren't you supposed to be in bed resting?" Mari sighed, folding her arms over her chest and tilting her head to one side as her eyes narrowed at the ruffled princess.

"Yes, but I could not sleep," she shrugged uncaringly in response. "Then the mice suggested this fun pastime while we have the Castle all to ourselves. It really is an exhilarating experience, Mari! You simply must give it a tr—"

Allura was cut short as she began to cough uncontrollably and Mari stood there uncomfortably as she waited for the princess to recover.

"Uh…do you want me to grab you some water?" she asked.

"No, I'm fine,"— _cough cough_ —"Really. Thank you though," the princess barely managed in between breaths.

Just then, the bridge's central monitor lit up and the five paladins appeared on screen, each of them sitting in their respective lions and watching as Allura seemed to be in the process of hacking up a lung.

"Allura?" Shiro asked, an eyebrow raised in concern. "Princess, are—are you okay?"

Taking a deep breath, the princess's coughs subsided and she straightened in her chair. "I'm fine!" she assured him, quickly flattening her messy wind-blown hair. "I'm just a bit winded. How's your training going?"

"Well…" Lance drawled hesitantly, his voice rising in pitch as he averted his gaze from the screen.

Allura immediately frowned. "What is it? What happened?"

"We ran into a bit of a problem," Shiro admitted. "Coran's been captured by an old friend of his named Kythylian Mu."

"What?!" she exclaimed just as Mari muttered, "Oh, great _._ "

"Yeah, and we have to find a Yalexian Pearl if we want to get him back," Hunk added.

"We're on Krell right now trying to find out where it is," Shiro explained.

"The Krellians told us their Princess Malocoti knows where it is, but she's been captured and we've gotta save her first," Pidge pitched in.

Allura let out a sigh, but put on a determined expression nonetheless. "That's it. I'm coming to help," she decided, standing from her seat. But before she could move any further, Lance stopped her.

"Don't sweat it, Allura. I already saved one beautiful alien princess. Doing it again shouldn't be a problem," he said, giving her a dazzling smile.

The princess immediately bristled. "What? You?! _Saved me_?!" she shrilled incredulously and Mari face-palmed. "When I get to that planet, you're going to have to rescue my foot from your—!"

Allura was cut off by another coughing fit and Shiro's frown of concern deepened.

"Princess, you should be resting," he advised. "You just saved a whole planet on the Balmera. Let us handle this."

"Ahem. I'm _fine_ ," she insisted, her voice coming out as a wheeze. "I can—"

"Hush now, little lady," Lance gently shushed her. "You just go back to bed and dream about my return."

"If I could reach through this screen and grab you by your _yulschtrix_ —" Allura began, clenching a fist at him angrily.

"Oh, I know," the Blue Paladin winked at her, and Mari could practically see the steam beginning to billow out of the princess's ears.

"Lance! Would you just zip it?" Keith finally snapped, and Lance's smile was instantly replaced with a scowl.

"Jealousy, thy name is Keith," he muttered before zipping his lips for the rest of the transmission.

"Just don't overwork yourself, okay princess?" Shiro said and Allura nodded reluctantly.

"All right, I will try to get some rest," she agreed before sitting back down in her seat with an indignant huff.

"Mari, remember what we talked about," he added pointedly, and Mari instantly stiffened, grimacing at the thought of their little conversation.

"Yeah, yeah, okay, _dad_ ," she muttered, and before he could respond she ended the transmission with a curt, "Good luck. See you guys later."

As the screen shut off, Allura cast a glance at Mari and curiously inquired, "What was that all about?"

"Nothing really," Mari sighed. "He just wanted me to watch—er, keep you company while they were gone."

Allura frowned, her perfect eyebrows knitting together as she turned her nose up at the Earthling in dismay. "I do not need to be fawned and hovered over. I am a grown woman who's thousands of years older than you, I might add. I can take care of myself perfectly fine, thank you."

Mari instantly recalled the hover chair incident from just five minutes prior and her eye twitched in annoyance. "You may be older than me, but you still look and _act_ like a teenager," she retorted. "I'm not gonna babysit you or anything, but I'm just—"

Allura's face immediately contorted in disgust. "Who said anything about sitting on a baby?" she gasped in absolute horror.

"W-What? No, babysitting is when someone watches and takes care of a kid while the parents are out."

"And that's how Earthlings take care of their young? By _sitting_ on them?!"

Mari groaned and dragged a hand down her face as the princess continued to give her a panicked look. "No, no. It's just a term we use. There is no sitting on babies involved. AT ALL."

The princess seemed to relax for a moment before crossing her arms over her chest stubbornly. "W-Well. I do not need to be 'babysat' either then."

"I'm not going to babysit you!" Mari insisted exasperatedly, her voice rising in pitch. "I'm just—just trying to bond with you or whatever! But if you don't want to, that's fine with me. I've got other things I can do today anyways."

She spun on her heel angrily and headed for the door, her fists clenched at her sides and her face heating up. Nope, nope, nope, she couldn't do this. Her buttons were being pushed way too easily. Screw Shiro's request, she and Allura were just too incompatible. She would just have to apologize to her brother and suffer through whatever scolding he dealt her when he got back.

"W-Wait! Hold on a tick!"

Mari was stopped short as the princess took a hold of her wrist. Allura wasn't gripping it hard, but the Altean's inhuman strength still overpowered Mari's and she couldn't pull her hand free from the princess's grasp.

"Mari, I apologize for angering you," Allura said, her bright blue eyes glistening and overflowing with sincerity. "I meant no offense. And I am sorry for the way I have been acting lately. I just…I feel so _useless_ right now and I hate how everyone is coddling me."

"Now you know how I feel," Mari huffed bitterly and Allura winced. "But if you don't want to keep feeling like that, you have to take it easy and relax."

"Yes, I know," she admitted. "But…would you mind if we did some of that bonding while I rest? I'm afraid it's long overdue and much needed for the two of us."

The princess was smiling hopefully now, waiting with bated breath for Mari's response. The space mice crawled up onto Allura's shoulders and were peering at the Earthling with equally pleading eyes.

Sighing, Mari relented, her anger gradually subsiding. "Okay," she agreed and Allura and the mice instantly squealed in excitement. "BUT," she quickly added before they could get ahead of themselves. "Let me take a bath first. I'm still all gross and sweaty from training."

* * *

The two girls took a warm bath together in the large pool-sized tub that was located in one of the female bathing rooms in the Castle. Afterwards, they returned to Allura's bedroom and donned their nightwear, Allura's being a lavish nightgown and Mari's just a t-shirt and a pair of loose pajama pants.

"The bathrooms here are awesome," Mari beamed as she towel dried her hair. "They remind me of _onsen_."

"Onsen?" Allura repeated, drying her own hair with some sort of high-tech, futuristic Altean blow dryer. "What is that?"

"It's a hot springs. They're like big baths," Mari explained. "Takashi and I used to go to them with our parents when we were little. My mom especially liked the herbal baths."

"I see," the princess mused, switching off the Altean device. Her frizzy silvery hair instantly poofed up to double its size and she casually proceeded to brush it flat. "My mother loved to take floral baths as well. She would always smell faintly of the sweet juniberries."

Allura gazed longingly into the mirror, smiling sadly as she recalled the happier days of her childhood on Altea. Mari was silent, unsure of what to say. She plopped down on the edge of the princess's downy bed and let her damp locks fall over her shoulders, folding her towel neatly and setting it on the nightstand as the space mice crawled onto her lap.

"Pfft! Your hair is a mess," Allura laughed lightly but not unkindly as she glanced at the Earthling through the mirror. "Here, let's straighten it out."

Before Mari could argue, the princess sat down behind her on the bed and began to carefully comb out the tangles and knots. Despite her frightening strength, Allura's touch was surprisingly gentle and soothing. It was incredibly relaxing, and Mari felt her cheeks grow warm in embarrassment as goosebumps appeared on her arms.

"What's wrong? Your shoulders suddenly hunched," Allura observed, pausing mid-comb. "Oh! Am I making you uncomfortable? I'm sorry, I can stop if you'd like."

"N-no, no, you're fine," Mari stammered, her face even redder now. "I'm just not used to having someone else brush my hair, that's all."

"Your mother never brushed it for you when you were younger?" the princess wondered, hesitating slightly before resuming her task.

"She did a few times," Mari admitted, absentmindedly beginning to rub Platt behind his ears. "But that was back when I was still just a toddler. After that she was usually too busy to do this sort of stuff with me. Not that I minded really…"

"That's awful!" Allura exclaimed sadly. "My mother was the queen of an entire planet, yet she always managed to make time for me."

"Yeah, well my mom was just a commoner with an average income," Mari noted. "She and my dad couldn't always make time for me and Takashi."

Allura hummed in response and Mari could tell she was frowning. After a moment, she said, "I must admit, I am not very fond of your mother."

"You're not the only one, trust me," Mari laughed bitterly.

"She is rather beautiful though, minus those horrendous ears," the princess continued. "And your father is quite handsome. I can see where you and Shiro get your good looks from."

"Heh, I don't know about that," Mari replied sheepishly. "But Takashi _was_ pretty popular amongst the girls in his classes."

"I'm sure the boys practically _worshipped_ you as well?"

"HA! That's a good one."

"You had no childhood suitors then?"

"Nope. I kinda scared all the boys away."

"But wasn't there one boy that wasn't completely dissuaded from pursuing you?" Allura inquired, standing from the bed and setting the comb down on her vanity now that Mari's hair now sleek and straightened. "I believe Lance was complaining about him the other day. What was his name again? Hmm…Aaren, was it?"

Mari grimaced at the mention of his name and quickly proceeded to tie her hair up in a loose bun. "Why does everyone keep bringing him up?" she mumbled to herself and Allura smiled wryly at her.

"So, who was he?" she inquired hopping back onto the bed excitedly. "He must have been rather special if he gave you your first kiss."

Geez, how much had Lance told her? "He wasn't special to me at all," Mari huffed as she reclined against the pillows, crossing her arms indignantly while the mice moved onto her stomach. "At least not in a romantic sense. His feelings were completely one-sided. He just managed to steal a kiss from me, that's all."

"Oh?" Allura mused, raising a disbelieving eyebrow at her and Mari's face flushed, but out of anger or embarrassment, the princess wasn't sure.

"I've never had a boyfriend and I'd date _Lance_ before I'd ever consider going out with Aaren," she insisted, and Allura laughed as the Earthling grumpily hugged a pillow to her chest.

"What about you then?" Mari asked, quickly diverting the attention away from herself. "Have _you_ had any suitors or boyfriends? I'm sure you had a ton being a princess and all."

"I suppose I did have quite a few," Allura admitted, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "I met many nobles and royals, yet I never got the chance to engage in a meaningful relationship with any of them."

"Were you interested in any one of them in particular?"

"No, I can't say I was," Allura shrugged. Then her shoulders sagged a bit and her expression saddened as she began absentmindedly tracing patterns on the blankets. "It doesn't really matter though, does it? It's been ten thousand years, they're all gone now."

 _Well that got depressing really fast_ , Mari frowned to herself.

"…What was Altea like? If you don't mind talking about it," she found herself asking after a short pause between them.

"Altea was a beautiful planet, full of vibrant flora and fauna," Allura gushed wistfully. "Technology was always advancing, the people were jovial, and we received many visitors from all over the universe. It truly was a wonderful place…I miss it so much…"

The princess sniffed and brushed away the fresh tears in her eyes, leaving Mari to mentally smack herself for asking in the first place. Hesitating slightly, she sat up straighter and took Allura's hand, gently squeezing it and causing the princess to look up at her in surprise.

"I'm sorry, Allura," she murmured quietly, unable to look the Altean in the eyes. "I was being insensitive, I shouldn't have asked."

"No, it's all right," Allura tried to reassure her, giving the Earthling a small smile and squeezing her hand back. "I enjoy talking about it. Besides, it reminds me of our cause and it strengthens my determination to defeat Zarkon."

Mari gave her an unsure look but said nothing, prompting Allura to inquire, "So, what is your Earth like? I've hardly heard you or any of the others talk about it."

"Earth?" Mari was silent for several ticks as she pondered how to respond. "Well…it's the third planet from our sun. Uh, we have one moon that's just called the moon. There are lots of people and lots of cities, but we don't have a singular ruler like you did on Altea. And the land's been split up into countries that have their own governments and leaders."

"Interesting…What else?"

"Um, let's see…There's a lot of greenery, deserts, massive oceans, and a ton of different animals too. Our tech is primitive compared to what's being used out here, and Earthlings are pretty oblivious to alien life. Oh! And we all have the same kind of rounded ears. Well, most of us do, anyways," Mari added with a small laugh.

"Your Earth sounds like it's full of diversity," the princess chuckled.

"Mhm, it is. I'm sure it's not as cool as Altea was, but it's all right. Maybe when this whole war with the Galra Empire is over, you'll get to see it someday."

"I'd like that very much," Allura smiled. Then a bit softly she added, "I'm sure you must be missing it a lot right now."

"Nope, not really," Mari curtly replied and the princess's expression turned to one of genuine surprise.

"Really? You're not the least bit homesick?"

"I haven't really thought about home in a while. Not since we left Arus," Mari admitted, beginning to gently stroke the four space mice that had migrated back to her lap.

But of course now that Allura had brought it up, images and sensations of home began to flitter through her mind: the mild and beautiful desert sunsets, the clear and refreshing starry skies, the wind rushing past her as she cut through the dry air on her bike, Kage's soft and fluffy fur, Jia's sly remarks, Magdalena's infectious laughter, her father's knowing smiles and the warm hugs he gave her every evening when he returned from work.

Mari's heart clenched painfully for a fleeting moment and she unconsciously bit her lower lip in an attempt to control her bubbling irritation. She couldn't— _shouldn't_ be homesick. She'd wanted nothing more than to get away from Earth, to escape from all the crushing expectations of those around her. And now her wish had come true; she was finally experiencing the space adventure she had always dreamed of. So why was she feeling so nostalgic now?

Sensing her distress, the space mice squeaked worriedly and Allura frowned. This time, she took Mari's free hand in her own and held it firmly, consolingly.

"There's nothing wrong with feeling homesick," she spoke kindly. "You don't have to hold back your emotions. I understand how you feel, really I do."

Feeling her cheeks heat up again, Mari shrugged sheepishly. "W-Well, I guess I miss Earth a _little_ bit, yeah. But…I love being out here with everyone. My brother's alive and safe. And we've already had so many interesting things happen to us. I'm glad I met you and Coran and the mice. I wouldn't want to be any place else right now."

Allura let out a small sigh of relief. "That's good to hear. I'm very happy to have you and the others with us, Mari. And thank you for confiding in me," she beamed, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.

"You know, it was actually really nice getting to spend time with you today," Mari admitted after a moment, unable to help feeling a bit embarrassed. "It was fun."

The princess's face immediately lit up and she bounced excitedly on the bed. "Really? I agree! Today was very enjoyable for me as well. We should do more girl-to-girl bonding activities in the future. Oh! And let's have Pidge join us next time too."

"I don't know if she'll be down for that, but we can always try," Mari laughed lightly. "There's no harm in asking, I guess."

Suddenly, the Castle's intercom turned on and both girls looked up in surprise as Lance's voice cheerfully and loudly announced, "Allura! We're back from training! Did you miss me?"

"Lance! Turn that off!" Pidge hissed and there was a scuffling sound as she attempted to snatch the handheld intercom device from him.

"Yeah, what if she's sleeping or something?" Hunk's worried voice piped up faintly in the background.

"I'll take that," Coran said, followed by Lance's indignant huff as the device was plucked from his hands. "Um, sorry about that, Princess. Just ignore us and go back to resting. We'll be on the bridge if you need us."

And just as abruptly as it had been switched on, the intercom was shut off, leaving and the two girls in silence as they gave each other wry grins.

"Guess that means they're back then," Mari sighed. "And just when I was getting used to the peace and quiet."

Allura laughed lightly at that and leaned back into the plush pillows. Despite her dazzling smile she was beginning to look tired, the energy and excitement that had fueled her during their talk already beginning to dissipate.

"You should get some sleep, Princess," Mari advised, the mice scurrying off her lap and settling down to snuggle on one of the cushions near Allura's head. "You look exhausted."

"Mhm…I suppose you're right," she murmured drowsily before stifling a yawn. "You had best report back to Shiro then. I'm sure he will want to know how things went with me."

"I'll be sure to tell him our bonding was a success," Mari promised as she stood up and the princess gave her a small smile. "I'll see you later, Allura. Get some rest and get better soon, okay?"

* * *

 ****Please feel free to leave a comment/review down below! They are much appreciated :D**

 ****Feel free to check out my tumblr too. Most of what's on there are simple pencil sketches that go with this fic, so if you're interested my tumblr username is pufftheninja.**


	6. Chapter 6

****Author's Note:** Happy (late) 4th of July to those who celebrate it! Here's a long chapter for ya ;)

 ****I do not own Voltron: Legendary Defender!**

* * *

Thanks to the abundance of unused Altean garments residing in all of the ship's extra bedrooms (once meant for the many guests of the Castle of Lions), doing the laundry was not a high priority for the resident humans. There were plenty of outfits to choose from, including armor, space suits, sweats, robes, pajamas, formal garb, and even swimsuits. Yet more often than not, the Earthlings chose to wear what was most comfortable and familiar to them whenever they got the chance: their casual attire (a.k.a. the clothes they had been wearing the night of Shiro's rescue). So with this particular preference of theirs, loads of laundry were started almost every day anyways.

Still snug in her pajamas and Black Lion slippers (an extra pair lent to her by Shiro), Mari hummed jovially to herself as she shuffled down the halls towards the Castle's laundry room, a small basket full of her own dirty clothes resting against her hip. She was more chipper than usual as she had gotten to sleep in and wake up naturally without an alarm for once. It was her so called "reward" from Shiro for completing her bonding-with-Allura training from the previous day, and although she had indignantly grumbled about being too old for incentives, she was glad that he had let her sleep well into the morning nonetheless. The others were no doubt preoccupied by their Sendak interrogation today, meaning the Castle's laundry room was free for her to take advantage of without having to wait for a vacant washer or dryer.

 _I wonder how things are going with Sendak anyways_ , Mari wondered to herself as she approached the door to the laundry room. Coran had mentioned using one of the memory extraction units for the interrogation, but the thought of them forcefully prying into Sendak's mind made a shiver run down her spine. Even if Coran wasn't using a Putaverunt Crystal on Sendak, the memory extraction process was bound to be a least a little painful and it was undeniably invasive. And sure, it was currently their only way to gather intel and discover potential weaknesses of the Galra Empire, but as someone who had had her memories intruded upon once before, Mari couldn't help but grimace at the idea.

 _Well, I guess there's no helping it_ , she sighed to herself, pausing to press the 'open' button on the panel next to the door. _Sendak's already stuck on the ship so we might as well take advantage of his presence here. Consider it his karma for almost killing Lance and Takashi and for trying to steal the lions. Besides, with the guys done with training, Allura still weakened, and Coran finishing repairs on the ship, we're all kinda at an impasse here. Maybe Sendak will have some valuable info tucked away in that fuzzy head of his that'll help us decide our next move against Zarkon._

The door slid open with a silent _whoosh_ and Mari was greeted by the faint flowery scent of Altean laundry detergent. The room was pristine and neatly organized with a row of washers flush against the left wall and a row of dryers against the back wall. To the right were shelves full of miscellaneous soaps, detergents, stain-removers, bleaches, and fabric softeners; a small table; and several baskets, metal hangers, and hooks to carry clothes.

Mari entered the room and set her basket on the floor next to the nearest washer, the door silently shutting behind her. She carefully separated the colors from the whites, placing them into their own separate washers before plucking a bottle of pink colored detergent off of one of the shelves and adding a cap-full of it to both loads.

"Warm for whites, cool for colors," she murmured to herself as she shut the lids and fiddled with the settings before activating both machines. The clear glass of the lids were tinted blue as the cleaning process began and the washers hummed gently as water began to filter into their chambers.

 _Okay. I've got half an hour—er, half a_ varga _to kill until I can put my clothes in the dryer_ , Mari told herself as she replaced the cap on the detergent and returned it to its original spot on its respective shelf. _I guess I could get some lunch now?_

She returned to the door and hit the 'open' button on the panel to leave, but to her confusion the entrance didn't open as it should have. The door hadn't even budged. She tried again, double checking that she was touching the right control and pressed the button harder this time. Still nothing happened.

 _What the quiznak_ , she frowned, crouching down to closer inspect the control panel. _I'm pretty sure this thing doesn't have a lock function…Did it get stuck on the track? Or maybe it's just malfunctioning? I mean, I guess it's possible. This_ is _a ten thousand year old sh—_

 _BANG! BANG! BANG!_

Stifling a yelp, Mari spun around on her heel so quickly she almost fell over. The two washers she had turned on just moments ago were now rumbling and jolting, violently crashing against each other and the wall. They had begun beeping obnoxiously in warning and Mari's heart nearly leapt into her throat as sudsy water began to leak out and pour onto the floor.

"Oh no, no, no! Dammit!" she swore and she nearly threw herself onto the washers, pressing down on their lids as if it would help to slow the water flow and cease the incessant shaking. She frantically searched for their off switches and pressed them repeatedly once she found them, but the machines were unresponsive and they began to thrash even harder instead. The other washers that had been left dormant were trembling now as well, rocking back and forth faster and faster as water filled their interiors and began to slosh out onto the ground.

"What the HELL is going on here?!" Mari yelled frustratedly to no one in particular, but her shouting only seemed to piss off the machines even more. All at once like a row of miniature geysers, the lids abruptly blew off all of the washers as buckets and buckets of a mixture of freezing cold and scalding hot water poured into the room.

Mari was harshly thrown onto the floor, her sopping articles of clothing falling next to her with a heavy splat. Her soft groans of pain quickly transformed into angry growls as she hauled herself to her feet and reassessed her situation. The room was rapidly starting to flood, the water having already reached her ankles and covered every inch of the metal floors. The door was still stuck and appeared to be airtight, allowing nothing to drain out into the hallway. The washers were still on the fritz and were unable to be shut off as they continuously spouted soap and water. But if she couldn't turn them off here, she was sure Coran would be able to power them down remotely.

Scooping her sopping clothes off the floor and tossing them onto the table, Mari trudged through the foaming water and tried the door again. When nothing happened, she let out an angry huff and tried the Castle-wide intercom system.

"Coran, I have a situation here in the laundry room," she shouted over the din of rushing water and beeping machinery, her voice quivering slightly and her heart thumping anxiously inside her chest. "The door won't open and I'm stuck inside here with washers that are freaking out and flooding the room. Can you please turn them off and send someone to open the door?"

She waited with bated breath and strained to listen over the deafening noise for Coran to respond affirmatively over the loudspeakers. The water was getting ever higher, lapping against her calves now, and with every passing tick Mari's panic steadily increased. She tested the door again, jamming her finger against the button several times and praying that it would open. When it continued to remain immobile, she tried the speakers once more.

"Coran, I'm seriously starting to freak out!" she warned, her voice cracking a bit. The water had risen to her knees and it showed no indication of receding. "Hello? Anyone? I could really use some help here!"

A few more minutes and there was still no answer. Mari was full on panicking now, desperately banging on the door and furiously clicking both the intercom and 'open' buttons as she screamed for help. Behind her, the bottles of detergent and other clothing cleaning products on the lowest shelves were beginning to be swept away by the rising pool, several of them losing their stopper caps and their contents mixing in with the water to create even more foamy bubbles of various colors.

The sudsy and cloudy water had reached her waist and was only continuing to climb up higher and higher. The door was still immovable, her pleas for assistance were remaining unheard no matter how loud she yelled, and the washing machines just continued to spew gallons of water. At this rate, they were going to fill the entire room until they drowned her. This realization was like a smack to the face and the utter ridiculousness of the whole situation made Mari's blood boil.

"Dammit! I am not letting myself be killed by a bunch of stupid machines!" she spat furiously, giving the door another good smack before backing away.

Wading through the water that was creeping up her stomach, she made her way to the right wall and snatched all of the hangers off of the hook they hung on before returning to the door. Then tightly holding onto one of them, she channeled all her strength into jamming it into the minuscule crack where the door met the frame. There was no way she would ever be able to completely pry open the heavy door with such a feeble metal hanger, but if she could manage to wedge it open even a little bit, that would be enough to let the water spill out into the hallway. The room wouldn't be able to fill up completely and someone was bound to stumble across the water pooling on the floor outside eventually. But with each hanger that ended up bending uselessly out of shape and with the door not having budged in the slightest, Mari's hopes for that plan to actually work quickly dissipated. If she couldn't stop the water flow or drain the room, her only other option was to find a different way to escape.

There were no other doors or windows within the laundry room and her eyes instantly shifted upwards towards the ventilation shafts. On the upside, it seemed that there was one grate in the ceiling that seemed large enough for her to fit through. On the downside, she'd have to wait for the water levels to rise so she could reach it. There were other nagging factors to take in as well: what if the grate was screwed shut and she couldn't open it? Or what if the shaft led to nowhere or ended up being too small for her to crawl through? It wasn't a foolproof plan, but it was her only option right now. She would try it first rather than do nothing and let herself drown in the soapy waters.

Positioning herself underneath the grate, Mari pressed her lips together anxiously and clenched her fists as she held her arms above the water, trying her best to ignore the fact that the water had now reached her chest. Her heart was hammering and she was straining on her tiptoes to remain in contact with the floor. It would just be a few more minutes until the water reached her chin and she'd have to start treading.

Just as the foamy water began to splash against her neck, the washers suddenly spluttered to a stop and everything went silent as the overhead lights flickered out. Mari was cast in darkness and she bit the inside of her cheek, trying to hardest not to scream. Her heartbeat was erratic as her fear spiked, the only sound in the eerie pitch blackness being the sloshing of neck-high, lukewarm water.

No more than a dobash later, the lights fluttered back on and the door to the laundry room slid open. Like a bursting dam, the murky yet sweet smelling water gushed out into the hallway, sweeping Mari, empty soap bottles, baskets, mangled hangers, and her sopping clothes along with it. She slammed against the wall adjacent to the laundry room with a solid _thunk_ before sliding down onto the floor, choosing to just sit there for a moment and take deep breaths while the rest of the room drained.

"Mari! Are you all rig—W-WHOA NOOO!"

There was a loud and wet sounding splat as Coran rounded the corner only to slip on the squelchy floors and fall onto his back. The momentum of his fall caused him to slide down the hall towards her, and she quickly latched onto him before he could skid all the way out of sight.

"Good gracious! I haven't seen floors this slick since Pop-Pop Wimbleton had a case of the slipperies!" he gasped, quickly sitting up and straightening so that he was kneeling in front of her. "Are you all right, my dear?"

"I-I'm fine," she stammered, her voice hoarse and her throat raw from yelling. "H-How did you find me? Were my calls getting through?"

Coran shook his head solemnly, his purple eyes full of concern. "I'm afraid not. I wasn't even aware you were trying to ask for help. Lucky for you I was checking the Castle's security camera systems when I saw what was going on here. I rebooted the laundry room's systems to shut everything off."

"I-I just wanted to do some laundry," she murmured lamely, her hands shaking as she moved to squeeze the excess water from her hair. Her clothes were drenched and the cool air that typically flowed through the Castle's halls made her shiver. She took another deep breath and hugged herself to better trap her body heat. "T-Then I couldn't open the door and all the w-washers just started shaking a-and spewing water. T-They were flooding the room and I-I tried calling you but…"

She sniffed and quickly brushed the water out of her eyes, her cheeks instantly flushing from embarrassment. Coran gave her a kind look before producing a warm towel he had thought to bring along with him and draped it over her shoulders.

"It's all right now," he assured her gently, rubbing her arms up and down in the hopes that the friction would help warm her some. "You're safe now, my dear."

Mari gave him a small yet extremely grateful smile. "Thank you, Coran," she said quietly and he beamed encouragingly in response.

"Now then, let's have you change and get warmed up," he prompted, carefully standing before offering his hand to help her up. "We'll deal with this mess here later."

"Is it really okay to just leave it for now?" she asked, taking his hand and allowing herself to be easily pulled to her feet.

"Oh, it'll be fine," he waved the concern away as if it were nothing. "I'll just have some cleaning drones come down here later and—"

The faint sound of two familiar voices screaming in terror cut him off, and Coran and Mari looked at each in other in confusion as the noise quickly grew louder and louder as whomever was shouting drew nearer. Seconds later, Lance and Keith came veering around the corner, their expressions a mixture of panic and fear.

"Coran! Mari! Thank gosh we found you!" Lance shrilled in relief once he spotted them. "This castle is going nuts—W-WHOAAAAHH!"

Just like Coran had earlier, Lance hadn't noticed the slippery ground and his feet were swept out from underneath him. His arms flailed about uselessly as he reached out for the nearest solid object to prevent his fall—Keith in this case—but he only ended up dragging the Red Paladin down with him as they crashed to the floor. They lay there for a moment, stunned from their harsh impact with the wet ground, before groaning and slowly trying to sit up. Their backs were completely soaked and tuffs of suds clung to their dampened hair.

" _Lance!_ " Keith growled, wincing as he quickly untangled himself from the Blue Paladin, but Lance didn't seem to have heard him.

"What the cheese…" he muttered to himself. "Where'd all this water come from? Is there a pipe leak somewhere?"

"Fortunately, no," Coran replied as both boys carefully stood up and shuffled closer. "But Number Five here has just had a rather traumatic experience with the laundry washers. They nearly flooded the room with her trapped inside."

"The door wouldn't open and all of the machines started pouring out water on their own. Plus the intercoms weren't working," Mari grumbled in further explanation, squeezing as much water as she could from her shirt and pants before adjusting the towel around her shoulders so that it was hanging around her neck. "The whole room was malfunctioning."

"The whole Castle has been acting weird today," Keith said.

"Yeah, no kidding!" Lance immediately pitched in. "First I got stuck in one of the cryo-pods and then I got trapped in the airlock and was almost launched into space! And then one of the training deck robots was out to kill Mullet over here!"

"And the washers tried to drown me," Mari grimaced. "All of this can't just be a coincidence, can it?"

"Maybe all of the Castle's systems are just on the fritz," Lance shrugged. "I mean, this place _is_ pretty ancient. No matter how futuristic and cool this ship is, it's still over ten thousand years old."

Coran frowned and slowly shook his head. "That can't be it," he insisted. "Not my grandfather's ship. No, it has to be something else. Oh, I have a bad feeling about this…"

* * *

With Lance leading the way, the group hurried towards the Green Lion's hangar to find Pidge and Hunk. Mari's wet slippers squelched obnoxiously against the metal tiles and it felt like she was stepping in slushy snow with each step. About halfway there, she was completely fed up with them and practically kicked them off, the poor soggy Black Lions splatting against the wall. Lance made an offended sound as he mortifiedly watched the slippers slump pitifully to the floor and Keith looked like he wanted to laugh. But Mari was too irritated to care and she grumpily scooped them up before continuing to plow ahead, her bare feet slapping against the cold metal.

Soon enough they reached their destination and Coran quickly pressed the button on the side panel to enter the hangar. Just as the doors began to slide open for them, there were several loud thuds from inside and the group was greeted by the sight of Pidge and Hunk sprawled out on the floor, their equipment and the Galran crystal strewn around them.

"How can you guys be taking a nap while this castle is trying to kill us?" Lance blurted incredulously as he marched towards them with Coran, Keith, and Mari right on his heel.

"Taking a nap? We've been floating around in Zero G!" Hunk protested, rubbing the back of his head as he stood. "You know how scary that is?"

"That's not scary! That's fun! I was almost ejected into space!" Lance shrilled, gesturing angrily to the door they had just come through.

"Well I got attacked by killer food, and that's the most horrifying thing you can imagine! The stuff of nightmares! It'll haunt me to my grave!" Hunk fired back.

"Well, I had a robot trying to kill me!" Keith piped up in his defense.

"The washing machines almost drowned me," Mari felt the need to chime in, and Pidge gave her a quizzical if not horrified look as she took in her drenched form.

"I don't care what you say, Coran. This castle has gone apples and bananas!" Lance huffed, turning on the Altean man with a glare that dared him to say otherwise. The others turned to him expectantly as well and Coran frowned as his eyes trained on the jagged purple crystal still sitting in the middle of the hangar.

"As I feared, this isn't the result of glitching systems," he sighed before nodding to the crystal. "Perhaps the infection from Sendak's Galra crystal is worse than we thought."

"I thought you were able to flush all of that bad energy out though," Mari said.

"I thought so too!" he exclaimed. "I double and triple checked every system and they showed up clean. But after hearing about the anomalies you've all experienced today, it seems that there's some residual energy hiding somewhere."

"Well if that's the case, let's just get rid of the crystal then," Hunk suggested.

"It's too late. When Sendak plugged it into the ship, it corrupted the entire system," Coran explained grimly.

"Sendak…" Keith murmured and he paused for a moment in thought. His eyes suddenly lit up in realization and his brow furrowed in concern. "Wait. Has anyone seen Shiro?"

The others were silent and Mari's stomach did an involuntary flip. "You guys…didn't leave him _alone_ with Sendak, did you?" she asked slowly, her sense of dread impending.

"Ummmm…" Hunk drawled hesitantly, almost nervously. "We… _might_ have done that…"

* * *

After booking it down to the cryo-pod chamber reserved for holding prisoners, the paladins plus Mari and Coran found Shiro leaning back against an empty memory container, his right hand clutching his head in pain. Sendak was nowhere to be found, his cryo-pod having disappeared.

"Takashi, are you all right?" Mari called out to him as they approached, and he seemed to startle at her voice. He looked uncharacteristically frightened, his forehead beaded with sweat and his eyes wide and fretful. Seeing him like this made Mari falter in her steps and she anxiously whipped her head around the room expecting the Galran commander to jump out and attack them at any moment.

"Where's Sendak?" Keith tried to ask calmly, but seeing Shiro so distraught had caused his own fears to flare and the question came out harsher than intended, sounding more like an angry demand.

"I...I had to get him out of here," Shiro stammered, his voice weak and quivering as he struggled to regain his composure. "I-I was hearing his voice. He...He can't be trusted on this ship."

"It is the ship! I got stuck in a cryo-pod, then, in an airlock. Keith got attacked by a robot, Hunk and Pidge got attacked by food, and Mari got attacked by washing machines!" Lance explained exasperatedly, resulting in a confused look from Shiro. "Yeah, it's been a weird morning."

Suddenly, the screen on the wall lit up and beeped in warning, prompting everyone to turn their attention towards it. Coran's face instantly contorted in surprise upon seeing the image on screen and his eyes flicked worriedly over the text that accompanied it.

"What? How is that possible?" he wondered in mild disbelief.

"What is it?" Keith pressed.

"The ship is starting a wormhole jump!"

* * *

As they had suspected, Allura, still clad in her lavish nightgown, was on the bridge standing at her control pillars and driving the ship to who knows where. The central forcefield had been activated around her, separating her from the others as they entered the room.

"Allura, what's going on?" Shiro called out to her, unable to keep the alarm out of his tone.

"We're going to Altea," Allura replied dreamily, turning to smile at them with glazed over eyes. "We're going home. My father is taking us."

"Ooh, that's not good," Hunk squeaked nervously.

Shiro tsked softly in dismay and he started towards the princess, the others quick to follow his lead. They had to snap Allura out of it and get her away from those controls before she was tricked into killing them all! But before anyone could even touch the energy field protecting her, King Alfor's face manifested on all screens and he was glaring daggers at the imposing group.

"Stay away from my daughter!" he yelled, his voice reverberating off the walls and causing the entire bridge to shake.

"Allura, wake up!" Shiro shouted frustratedly.

"The crystal must have corrupted King Alfor's artificial intelligence," Coran quickly analyzed the situation. "It's taking over!"

"So much for his memory A.I. being left unharmed," Mari muttered and the older Altean shot her a look that said 'Not helping'.

The Castle exited the wormhole and the entire bridge was momentarily engulfed in a blinding white light that gradually faded away to reveal a rusty-red fireball sitting directly in their path.

"We're headed straight for a star and it's about to explode!" Pidge gasped as the ship drew ever nearer to the dying celestial object. But Allura hadn't seemed to realize this as she stared straight ahead, her eyes full of wonder as she took in an illusion only she could see.

"Father, I can see Altea," she exclaimed, beaming in excitement as the holographic A.I. of her father appeared next to her.

"Allura, snap out of it!" Shiro desperately tried again. "You need to wake up! We're all in danger here!"

"Princess! What you're seeing isn't real!" Coran pitched in, uselessly slamming one fist against the energy barrier separating him from her.

Allura didn't even spare him a glance as she continued to murmur contentedly, "The juniberries, the most exquisite flower of all…"

"Allura, please!" Coran urged, striking the force field again as she plucked a nonexistent flower. "You've got to listen to us!"

The princess paused this time, turning towards Coran slightly and blinking once at him. "Is this real?" she inquired hesitantly after a moment.

"Of course it is real, daughter," the hologram of her father tried to persuade her, his tone eerily flat and his expression emotionless. "That flower you're touching _is_ real."

"But where is the fragrance of the sweet juniberries?!" Coran pointed out and Allura frowned before delicately raising the invisible plant to her nose and taking a whiff. Her eyes seemed to come back into focus and they widened in realization as she was pulled out of her hallucination.

"That's _not_ Altea," she said shakily, sounding betrayed as she took in the sight of the unstable star before them.

"When that star goes supernova, it will destroy the entire system," Pidge brought the princess up to speed. "Allura, you must reset the course and get us out of here!"

Allura nodded curtly and wasted no time in resting her hands on the controls to take the Castle to safety. But before she could even relay a single command, her control pillars emitted strong electrical currents that shocked her, causing her to scream in alarm. She stumbled out of the energy field and her position at the helm was immediately taken over by King Alfor's A.I.

"Father, please, I beg you to turn this ship around," Allura pleaded with the hologram. "If we don't do it soon, we will all perish!"

"I know," King Alfor intoned. "That is my intention."

"What? Why?" she cried out in disbelief.

"Don't you see, dear daughter?" King Alfor said, his image beginning to faze in and out of focus. "Zarkon can never be defeated. He's been ruling for ten thousand years."

"But we _must_ continue to fight!" Allura asserted.

"Fight for what?" the king scoffed. "It is all over for Altea. You don't have to live a lifetime of war. You can be with me and the rest of your people."

"Father, please!" the princess continued to beg. "The paladins and I can still stop Zarkon! Somewhere in there, you must want that to happen."

"Allura, my A.I. has been corrupted. You must disconnect my power source," the hologram suddenly said, his tone fearful as he fought with the bad energy of the Galran crystal to remain in control. "We can stroll across the Blossom Canyon every morning, just like we used to. Remember how much you loved that?"

Allura's expression saddened and she bit her lower lip to stop it from quivering. "I remember. I'll see you soon, Father," she whispered, guilty averting her gaze down to the ground as she came to terms with what had to be done. Her hands clenched into angry fists as she steeled herself and she turned to the others with a look of rigid determination. "I've got to get into the A.I. chamber to disconnect my father's power source manually."

"But that means…losing King Alfor forever," Coran said, his own face scrunching up in sorrow.

The princess's expression was grim but she didn't think twice about her decision. "Paladins, get to your lions! I need you to slow the Castle's descent into the star," she instructed as she sprinted towards the doors. "Mari, you come with me. I might need your help getting inside my father's A.I. chamber."

"I can try to override the system to open the hangars," Coran volunteered, and the group immediately split up to fulfill their assigned tasks.

As Mari followed Allura out of the bridge, she could feel the air around them growing warmer as the Castle inched ever closer to the star. She could feel her damp clothes drying against her skin and they were practically steaming by the time they reached the room that housed King Alfor's memory storage unit. Allura pressed her hand to the panel next to the door and waited anxiously for it to open, but the panel only beeped in rejection and turned red as the corrupted A.I. refused to let her enter.

"Quiznak," the princess cursed under her breath. "He's locked us out!"

"Can't Coran just open the door?" Mari asked but Allura shook her head as she furiously began to hike up her skirt.

"He's already preoccupied with opening all five lion hangars. There's no time left to wait," she said. "We'll just have to pry it open ourselves."

From a holster strapped to her upper thigh, Allura pulled out a staff similar to Mari's and elongated the weapon, spear tip and all. Then without any hesitation, she thrust the blade deep in between the crack where the double sliding doors met and began pushing and pulling to wedge the staff further in.

"I could use a little assistance here," she grunted, casting a look Mari's way as her inhuman strength was still not quite enough to crack open the heavy metal entrance.

"O-Oh, yeah," Mari stammered and she instantly joined the princess's side, putting her all into pulling the staff back. "D-Do you always hide a weapon under your dress like that?"

"Yes, of course I do," Allura managed through clenched teeth, sweat beginning to line her brow from the effort and intensifying heat. "Don't you always carry your staff on your person?"

"That would be a smart thing to do from now on, yeah," Mari muttered, recalling her attempt to open the laundry room doors with hangers. _Hangers!_

The chamber doors creaked and groaned in protest, the machinery controlling them screeching angrily as they were forcefully wedged apart. When enough space had been created for at least one person to squeeze through, Mari said, "Hurry up and duck inside!"

Allura's eyes widened and she shot her a look of concern. "Are you sure you can hold the doors open long enough on your own?"

"Yes! I'll be fine," Mari promised, readjusting her sweaty hands to get a better grip on the staff and channeling the rest of her strength into her arms, legs, and upper back. "I just have to keep it open for a few more seconds, I can handle that. And like you said, we don't have much time left anyways."

The princess hesitated for a moment before setting her jaw in determination. "All right, I trust you. I'm letting go…Now!"

As soon as Allura let go of her half of the weapon, Mari inhaled sharply as the transferred weight of the doors nearly threw her forward. But gritting her teeth in vexed persistence, she dug her heels into the floor as best as she could and pulled back harder, ignoring the burning sensation in her arms and shoulders and the sting of the hot metal floor against her bare feet.

"O-Okay, Allura!" she hissed, nodding towards the small entryway she was just barely managing to keep open by herself. "I-I'm not sure how much longer I can hold it open! So hurry up and go now!"

The princess gave her one last grateful look before squirming through the small gap, and just in time too. Not even a tick later, the door panel beeped in warning and mechanisms whirred loudly before the staff snapped in two as the doors slammed shut on it. The sudden release of pressure sent Mari stumbling forward and she fell on her knees, the broken half of the weapon clanging to the floor in front of her.

The Castle was heating up more and more with each passing second. The air was becoming uncomfortably thick and humid and it was getting harder for Mari to breathe. Waiting anxiously outside of the chamber, she imagined they only had a few more minutes left until they completely combusted from the dying star, and she hoped to God that Allura successfully managed to shut down Alfor's A.I before then.

When the doors to the chamber suddenly opened and Allura exited the room with the other broken half of the staff grasped in her hand, Mari gave her an expectant look that was answered with a solemn nod: she had successfully disconnected the A.I. They were going to be all right! But despite their victory, the princess's blue eyes were sparkling with fresh tears and her relief wasn't enough to mask the sadness in her expression. Without a word, Mari felt her body moving on its own as she wrapped Allura in a gentle hug that was returned almost instantly.

"I'm so sorry, Allura," Mari whispered, as the princess sniffled and her body trembled slightly. "I know that was painful. But you did the right thing."

"I know," she murmured in reply. She took a deep breath to steady herself and pulled away from Mari, giving her a small smile as she did so. "But we're not out of this mess yet, I'm afraid. Let's get out of here."

* * *

** **Please feel free to leave a comment/review down below! They are much appreciated & encourage me to keep writing this fic :D**

 ****Feel free to check out my tumblr too, which is pufftheninja.**


	7. Chapter 7

****I do not own Voltron: Legendary Defender!**

* * *

The next quintant was spent completing maintenance on the Castle of Lions. While Coran and Allura focused on rebooting and thoroughly cleansing the ship's systems ( _again_ , just to be safe) and transferring the information gathered from Sendak's memories to the Castle's databases for later analysis, the rest of the crew preoccupied themselves with cleaning. Taking a few janitorial drones with them, the group of humans split up into two groups: Pidge, Lance, and Hunk were in charge of tidying up the Green Lion's hangar and disposing of the Galran crystal as well as fixing the food goo machine, leaving Mari, Keith, and Shiro to tackle the laundry room and the swampy hallway.

Mari wrung out the soapy water from her mop into a bucket and paused as one of the cleaning drones zipped by to empty it. The little robot nimbly scooped up the pail of water, moving carefully so as not to spill it, and scurried off once more to dump its contents. The drones had certainly been making their chore go much faster than if she, Shiro, and Keith had been working by themselves. They were pitching in any way that they could, pushing the washing machines back into alignment against the wall, reattaching the washer lids, reorganizing the shelves, fixing the hangars, soaking up the excess water, and emptying the buckets. There were even a few that had started her laundry loads from yesterday, making sure that her clothes definitely got clean this time around.

 _Those things sure are helpful_ , Mari mused, slapping the mop back down on floor to sop up more water. Something bumped against her foot and she glanced down in surprise to see one of the circular drones gliding slowly across the floor like a little water-sucking Roomba. And sitting on top of it were the space mice, each of them squeaking happily as they mooched a free ride.

"Hey, you four could help, you know," she scoldingly teased and they chirped indignantly before the drone skated away. From the other end of the hall, Keith rolled his eyes and leaned against his own mop to stare at her with narrowed eyes.

"They're _mice_. What help are they going to be in cleaning all this up?" he said, gesturing to what remained of the flooded floors and causing Mari to frown.

"I was kidding, obviously," she muttered, turning her back to him as she continued to work. An almost inaudible huff of annoyance escaped his lips seconds later and she bristled. "You don't have to help me, you know," she said, pausing again to place one hand on her hip and glare at him.

"Well I'm not just going to sit around and do nothing while everyone else is working," he countered. "I'm not Lance."

Mari couldn't help but crack a smile at that one, and from inside the laundry room they could hear Shiro's sigh of disapproval, but he said nothing.

"What're you saying about me, Mullet?"

"Oh, speak of the devil," Mari mumbled as Lance turned the corner, a mop gripped in his hands and a scowl on his face.

"Nothing," Keith replied casually. "What are you even doing here? I thought you were helping Hunk and Pidge."

"Well I _was_ until they started talking about a bunch of sciencey techy stuff. And I was getting bored so I thought I'd come help you guys," he admitted with a shrug. Then a wide grin spread across his face and he waved his mop at the two of them as he added, "Heh, I'm going to _mop the floor_ with you two!"

He looked at the duo expectantly but Keith remained unfazed and Mari just stared at him, clearly unamused. "Ha ha so punny," she remarked dryly just as Shiro called out from the laundry room, "Not everything has to be a competition, Lance."

"Oh I know, I know. I'm just saying I could totally wipe the floor with you and Keith, both literally and figuratively," he said lightly, a sly smile playing on his lips.

"What, you mean like in a sparring match or something?" Mari raised a quizzical eyebrow at him.

"Oh yeah!" he grinned and nodded at her in confirmation.

"Are you joking?" Keith snorted under his breath and Lance whirled on him, his eyebrows furrowed in irritation.

"Hey, I've been training a lot lately! I'm pretty confident that I could take you two down in a heartbeat in a fight," he quickly defended.

"Yeah, maybe as a sniper," Mari said. "But definitely not at close range."

"Oh yeah? You wanna test out that theory on the training deck?" he challenged, beginning to poke her playfully in the ribs. "Let's go, Mari, just you and me! Mano a mano!"

"Lance, you don't want to egg her on," Shiro warned, poking his head out of the laundry room to give him a discouraging look.

"Yeah, don't start a fight you're going to lose," Keith added with a slight smirk.

"Oh come on!" Lance huffed. "I will not—WAAAHH!"

In one swift movement, Mari had nimbly used her mop to sweep Lance's feet out from under him. He fell on his butt with a solid _splat_ and his cleaning tool flew out of his hands before it clattered to the wet floor next to him.

"Owww…" he whined before glowering up at Mari. "What the heck, man!… _Woman_!"

"I was just saving us time," she shrugged innocently, a small smile forming on her lips. "See? Now we know that you'd absolutely lose against me, at least."

"We already knew he would though," Keith noted and Lance glared daggers at him.

"No, no! I just wasn't ready!" the Blue Paladin insisted, standing slowly and wincing as he rubbed his sore behind. "If we were on the training deck using our actual weapons, I'd definitely win."

"You won't be on the training deck in a real battle, Lance," Keith said in all seriousness. "And our bayards might not always be available."

"Yeah. Sometimes you might have to improvise," Mari nodded in agreement.

"What, by using a mop?" Lance scoffed, raising an eyebrow as his picked up his own and leaned on it.

"No, they're right, Lance," Shiro piped up, wiping his hands off with a towel as he emerged from the laundry room. "We can't always rely on our bayards to protect us in a fight. It pays off to be resourceful."

Lance sighed exasperatedly but grumbled out a reluctant "okay" before returning to work.

* * *

With the Castle cleaned and back to normal, it was time for the team to make their next plan of action. The following morning, everyone met on the bridge and gathered around Pidge's designated seat as she worked fervently to decode and analyze the pieces of Sendak's memories that had been stored on the ship's computers.

"Somewhere inside Sendak's memories we should be able to find the inside information that gives us the key to take down Zarkon," Allura said, biting her lip anxiously as she watched Pidge with wavering hope in her eyes.

"I know it was my idea to hook up Sendak to a memory extraction unit for interrogation, but…I don't think your father would approve of searching through an enemy's memories," Coran voiced his concerns as he cast her an unsure frown.

"I know," Allura admitted. "But we have to do everything we can to defeat Zarkon."

"Once we learn all his weaknesses, we can drive up to his front door and challenge him to a fight," Lance grinned confidently. "Winner gets the universe."

"Yes, because it is _that_ easy," Mari rolled her eyes and Lance gave her a sour look.

"Would it kill you to have a little faith in us?" he said, tilting his head ever so slightly towards her and raising an eyebrow.

She stared at him for a moment, her expression deadpan and resolute. "I have _faith_ that challenging the final boss head on like that will get us all killed," she provided and Lance scowled.

"Well, she's not wrong…" Hunk agreed hesitantly. "We can't fight Zarkon without some sort of plan. A plan that involves us winning and making it out alive, preferably."

"Precisely why we're doing this," Shiro nodded, gesturing towards their Green Paladin who was still hard at work. "Anything good yet, Pidge?"

"We were only able to salvage bits and pieces," she reported. "I haven't found anything from Sendak's memories that could be of any help to us. Not yet, anyways."

Keith sighed somewhat disappointedly and straightened, letting his arms fall to his sides. "We need something to work with," he said impatiently. "Right now, we don't even have a decent map of the empire."

"Who needs a map?" Lance dismissed him, crossing his arms over his chest. "After ten thousand years of conquering, I could probably fire my bayard at like, any random point in space and hit a Galra ship."

"If we could just find troop locations or supply routes, small targets we could hit-and-run, then we could start to free planets one by one," Shiro frowned slightly as he mulled over this possible plan of action.

"Boring. I want the big kaboom!" Lance exclaimed, curling his hands into fists and striking a pose that made Shiro's frown deepen.

"Zarkon's been building his empire for ten thousand years. We're not going to tear it down overnight with five inexperienced pilots and one support ship. Hitting him where he lives would be a _huge_ mistake," he pointed out bluntly and the Blue Paladin deflated a bit.

"I thought you wanted us to be resourceful," Lance protested. "And the last thing Zarkon would expect is a head-on attack from Voltron itself!"

"I think you're confusing resourcefulness with flat out stupidity, Lance," Mari noted dryly and an angry growl rumbled in the back of Lance's throat as his eyes narrowed at her.

"Are you guys done?" Pidge intervened, casting them an irritated look over shoulder. When neither of them said anything, she turned back to her computer and proceeded, "Okay, I've cross-referenced Sendak's memories with the info I got from the downed ship back on Arus. Most of it was a garbled mess, but one thing kept repeating, something called a 'Universal Station'."

"Universal Station?" Hunk repeated, moving closer to squint at the foreign numbers and text flashing across her screen. "Like, the kind of station that controls the entire universe?"

"Well, we are translating it from Galra, so it could also be 'Galactic Hub'," Pidge said, casually pushing Hunk out of the way so she could look over the translated information once more.

"Or 'Space Base'!" Lance suggested with a sly grin and everyone was silent as they gave him unimpressed looks. "…What?"

Shaking his head slightly at the Blue Paladin's comment, Coran headed over to his own control panel and began to type in commands. "I'm pulling up the location of your Universal Hub Station Base on our screens now," he explained as an unknown area of the universe appeared on the main display. There wasn't much to look at other than three planets of varying sizes and colors. The coordinates of this so-called space base revealed nothing special or suspicious in the slightest with not a single Galran ship or facility in sight.

"So...where is it?" Lance finally asked the question that was on all their minds.

"I don't know," Coran confessed, just as confused as the others. "Our long-range sensors are unable to find anything at those coordinates."

"Maybe he remembered it wrong," Keith shrugged.

"Or maybe we just stumbled across a top-secret base in Sendak's memories," Pidge prompted in all seriousness.

"Only one way to find out," Allura said grimly. "Let's go take a look."

Unable to directly wormhole to the location of the potential Galran hub without revealing the Castle's presence, Allura drove the ship as fast as she dared towards the coordinates. It took at least a varga to reach their destination and as they approached the largest of the three planets, the princess slowly and carefully steered the Castle so they could peek around the massive celestial body.

"We should be close enough to get a good scan, but far enough away to avoid being noticed," she affirmed as she brought the ship to a halt and let it hover just out of range of the planet's gravitational pull. Through the main window, the hidden Galran base came into view, the facility having been built into a giant chunk of space rock that sat directly in the center of the three planets.

"There it is," Shiro said in mild astonishment and the others were silent as they stared at the base with varying levels of awe.

"It appears the gravitation between the planets warps the electron emission spectrum enough to keep the facility off the deep space scanners," Coran observed as his computers analyzed the hub.

"So you can only see it if you really know where to look," Pidge mused, tapping her chin thoughtfully.

"This place must handle shipments from all over the Galra Empire," Shiro surmised, taking note of the multiple Galran warships pulling in and out of the loading docks.

"If this is some big airport where shipments come and go, why is it hidden?" Pidge wondered.

"There must be more to this than we're seeing," Shiro concluded.

"Then let's go down there," Mari suggested, gesturing to the bridge doors. "There's no point in just standing around here and staring at it from the outside."

"Agreed," Allura nodded. She immediately highlighted an upper portion of the hub on her screens and enlarged the image for everyone to see. "We'll need to enter here: the central control building."

Keith stiffened and blinked in surprise before turning to face her with a hesitant frown. "I'm sorry, Princess, did you say 'we'?"

"Yes. Mari and I are going with you," Allura confirmed simply as if this were obvious, and she folded her hands in front of her. "I've traveled through the Galra transportation hubs many times with my father before the war began. I know more about them than any of you. And Mari has been training very hard, her combat skills have excelled immensely. It won't hurt to have one more fighter accompany us, especially since we will be entering enemy territory."

"Princess, I'd rather you and Mari stay here," Coran started unsurely and Allura's brow furrowed in dismay.

"I've been left on the Castle for every mission so far," Mari huffed in irritation, her eyes narrowing as she crossed her arms over her chest indignantly. "I'd like some field experience for once, please and thank you."

"This is just an infiltration mission anyways, it shouldn't be too dangerous. We can handle ourselves if we get into trouble," Allura pitched in. "We're a part of this fight against Zarkon as much as anyone. We're _going_. Does anyone have a problem with that?"

She glanced around the room, daring someone to say otherwise. But Pidge, Hunk, Lance, and Keith remained silent, unwilling to meet her icy stare and opting to look elsewhere.

"Uh…" Coran whimpered fretfully and he looked desperately to Shiro for backup.

Shiro's dark eyes flicked to Allura and then to Mari. They lingered on her for a moment and she clenched her teeth as she stared back at him, her gaze unwavering as she silently pleaded for him to let her and the princess go with them.

Finally, Shiro sighed and flashed her a small and relenting smile before turning to Coran with a carefree shrug. "Fine. Suit up, everyone."

* * *

Their plan to infiltrate the Galran base was simple: everyone would pile into the Green Lion—the only lion equipped with cloaking thanks to Pidge's ingenuity—and they'd fly around the dark side of the nearest planet while Coran flooded the base's short-range sensors with a radiation burst, allowing them to remain undetected as they approached from behind. But once they got inside the hub…well, they would just have to wing it from there.

The Green Lion landed without issue on the rugged landscape behind the central control station and moving as quietly as a space mouse, everyone disembarked, keeping low to the ground as they hurried across the dusty space rock.

"Stay close to me." Shiro had barely uttered the order, but it had been loud enough to be heard by his intended listener. Mari raised an incredulous eyebrow at him and she opened her mouth, fully ready to tell him she wasn't a baby and could take care of herself blah, blah, blah. But his jaw was set and the worry in his eyes mixed with the absolute solemnity of his expression made her hesitate and she zipped her lips, opting to nod silently in understanding. This mission was fairly low-stakes and involved intel-gathering only, but it was her _first_ _one_. She had to be careful and take her brother's instructions seriously lest he decide to exclude her from any future missions. No, she couldn't afford to screw up this time.

With the loading dock void of any battle cruisers and with a handful of sentries scattered about, the team snuck into the main building through an unguarded door using Shiro's Galran prosthetic. Pidge pulled up the blueprints of the facility they had acquired from the Castle's scans and they quickly made their way to the central control room where Shiro promptly knocked out the only Galran on duty while Lance and Hunk took out the remaining two sentries. Then Pidge sat in front of the control panels and got straight to work as she and Hunk began hooking up her laptop to the base's computer systems.

"How's it look out there?" Shiro asked Keith and Lance who were on watch.

"All clear," Keith answered from his side of the room.

"Same here," Lance confirmed as he continued to peer out the windows.

"This shouldn't take too long," Hunk announced as he plugged in one final cord. He stood up and stepped away from the panel, relocating himself to sit on the broken sentry that laid on the floor next to Lance.

"We'll have all the information we need in a few minutes," Pidge said, typing commands into her laptop as a series of images and codes popped up on screen. "Hunk and I have made some improvements since the last time I tried to download Galra info. We should get a nice, clean translation immediately. Hunk had a great idea about how to do it."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Hunk grinned excitedly. "Do you guys remember when we studied algorithms at the Garrison, and Mr. York told us that joke about the ghost learning symbolic logic and innumerably infinite sets?"

"Boring!" Lance groaned.

"Right, yeah, totally, it was boring," Hunk easily brushed off the Blue Paladin's disinterest before continuing. "Anyway, the joke goes—"

"Hey, guys, sorry to interrupt, but I think we got company," Keith quickly intervened and everyone crouched down as a dark shadow loomed over them from the exterior of the building. Another battle cruiser had approached the hub and it was docking right in front of them.

"Should we leave?" Mari whispered as she and the others hunched around Pidge.

"Not yet. We just need a few more seconds," Pidge muttered, her fingers flying even faster across her keyboard.

"Stay low," Shiro instructed them. "We need this intel."

Suddenly the control panel blinked and beeped with an incoming message and Pidge gasped. Everyone quickly ducked out of the line of sight just as a flesh and blood Galran soldier popped up on screen and looked around the empty control room expectantly.

"He's still looking," Lance hissed after a few tension filled ticks. "I think he's waiting for a signal or something."

"I got it," Hunk assured them quietly and he crawled out from his hiding spot under the control panel, dragging one of the broken sentries with him. Grunting softly, he propped the dead robot up in front of the screen and maneuvered it like a puppet, making it give the confused officer a wave and then a thumbs up to confirm the ship's entry. Hesitating for only a moment, the Galran gave the sentry a funny look before nodding in confirmation and ending the transmission.

"Nice job, Hunk," Lance complimented as everyone squirmed out from under the panel.

"Thanks," the Yellow Paladin beamed and the two exchanged a high-five, with Hunk using the sentry's broken arm.

"See, now _that's_ being resourceful," Mari said, giving Lance a pointed look as she jabbed a thumb towards Hunk.

"You're not gonna let this resourceful thing go, are you?" he scowled back and she shook her head no.

"Not until you do something clever like that."

"You shouldn't expect so much from him, Mari," Pidge chimed in with a huff of laughter, her eyes still glued to her screen and her fingers never faltering in their work. "Or rather, you _can't_ expect that much from him."

"Hey!" Lance began indignantly, but everyone quickly turned to shush him as a reminder to keep his voice down.

"Okay, download complete," Pidge continued, steering them back on track and ignoring Lance's grumbles of offense behind her.

"What's it say?" Keith asked.

"Nothing. This place doesn't have any useful information," she replied, not even trying to hide the dismay in her voice. "Just a schedule of the ships coming in and out."

"Well, I guess this mission was a bust," Lance sighed. "But hey, at least you got to get out in the field for once." He gave Mari a teasing smile and a small nudge in the ribs and she gave him a dry look in response.

Stifling a sigh of disappointment, Shiro straightened and turned to the others. "Let's get back to the Castle," he decided, but Allura was quick to stop everyone from retreating.

"Hold on. Pidge, do you know where that ship is headed?" she asked, pointing to the cruiser outside that had just landed.

"Um…It looks like it's scheduled to be here for about a half an hour, then head off to Central Command," Pidge relayed as she sifted through the newly obtained and translated files.

"That's where they have the information we need," Allura concluded. "I'm going to sneak aboard that ship and get it for us."

"What?" Lance exclaimed incredulously. "No way!"

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Mari raised an uncertain eyebrow at the princess.

"How would you even get in?" Keith questioned.

"I'll be fine," Allura tried to reassure them. "And I'm going to walk right through the front."

Taking a step back from them, the princess took off her helmet and closed her eyes in concentration as every inch of her normally mocha colored skin took on a lavender hue and she grew at least a foot in height. When she was finished, she was towering over all of them with a pleased smile on her face.

"Wow," Mari blinked twice in surprise as she took in Allura's new appearance. "That's awesome!"

"Thank you," the princess beamed proudly.

"How the heck did you do that?" Hunk asked.

"The Alteans are a chameleon-like people who can blend in with the local populations," she explained. "It's the ability that's made us great explorers and diplomats throughout our history."

"So, can you turn into, like, a balloon?" Lance blurted out curiously.

"How many different colors can you be at once?" Pidge chimed in.

"Aren't you afraid you'll rip your pants?" Hunk wondered.

Allura hesitated for a moment, her expression one of slight confusion as she pondered how to answer their blunt inquires. Finally she replied, "No, just one at a time, and I will need a change of costume." Then nodding to the unconscious Galran soldier in the corner she added, "I can use his uniform as a disguise."

"I can't let you go in there alone," Shiro intervened before she could get ahead of herself, and Allura visibly bristled

"Excuse me? I do _not_ need your permission," she scoffed and her eyes narrowed dangerously as she stared him down. The others looked to the Black Paladin curiously, waiting to see how he responded and mentally preparing themselves for the argument of a lifetime between their noble leader and their stubborn princess.

"It's too dangerous," Shiro stated firmly, his expression remaining unfazed by the daggers Allura's fierce gaze was sending his way. "I'm going in with you."

" _You_ will stick out like a Choferiak's nose," she rebutted in disapproval.

"You're going to need that nose, Princess," Pidge took the opportunity to back up their leader. She lifted up his false arm and waved it at Allura. "Shiro's hand is made from Galra tech. It's the only thing we have that will allow us to interface with their systems and gather intel, remember? I can monitor the download remotely from here."

Allura's frown deepened and she looked like she wanted to protest more, but she ultimately sighed and relented, "Fine, you can come."

"Uh, you guys better hurry up if you want to get on and off before the ship leaves for Zarkon central," Hunk warned, peering out the window nervously at the Galran ship.

"How are you going to get Shiro on board?" Keith asked and Allura and Shiro exchanged a hesitant look that implied they hadn't thought that part through yet.

The group was quiet for a moment as they individually brainstormed yet another infiltration plan. Suddenly, Lance brightened and their silence was broken as he snapped his fingers.

"I've got it!" he announced and before anyone could question him, he hurried out the door and disappeared down the hall. A few ticks later, he returned with a hovering cargo bin in tow.

"Where'd you find that?" Mari asked, tilting her head towards the crate as he brought it further into the room.

"Saw it sitting against the wall on the way in," he explained, an excited grin spreading across his features. "Shiro can hide in here and Allura can bring him on board."

"This _is_ a transportation hub, so it's not likely to arouse suspicion," Pidge nodded slowly in approval. "Lance, that was actually surprisingly ingenious of you."

The Blue Paladin beamed triumphantly. "I know right?" he gushed with a slight laugh before giving Mari a sly look. "See, I can be resourceful, huh?"

She rolled her eyes at him but didn't try to hide her smile as she drawled lightly, "Okay, I gotta admit that was good thinking of you."

"Nice work, Lance," Shiro agreed, casting a small nod his way. Then addressing the team as a whole, he said, "All right guys, let's get to work."

* * *

** **Please feel free to leave a comment/review down below! They are much appreciated & encourage me to keep writing this fic :D (Oh, and the more comments/reviews I get for this chapter, the sooner I'll upload the next one, which has already been written out and edited, I might add ;D ).**

 ****Feel free to check out my tumblr too, which is pufftheninja.**


	8. Chapter 8

****Author's Note:** No one added a new review (sadly), but to honor our favorite Ninja Sharpshooter on his birthday, here's a new/early chapter anyways! Yay! Happy (a little bit late) Birthday, Lance!

 ****I do no own Voltron: Legendary Defender!**

* * *

After Allura had donned her disguise and departed with Shiro hidden inside the cargo bin, the remaining four paladins plus Mari peered nervously outside the central control tower's windows at the docking bay below. Minutes later, Allura came into sight with the crate and everyone waited with bated breath as she was halted by one of the guards at the battleship's entry ramp. Two sentries, each carrying a glowing golden vat, exited the cruiser and passed her and the guards, carefully setting the containers down on the ground for transport into the hub without so much as glancing in their direction. The path clear now, the guards waved for Allura to enter the ship and the paladins simultaneously let out a sigh of relief once she was out of sight.

"Good," Lance breathed out softly. "They're in."

"I'm glad that actually worked," Mari said, and beside her Lance smiled proudly to himself.

"Hey, what do you think they have in those giant containers?" Keith nodded to the large tubular basins the two sentries had unloaded from the cruiser just moments ago.

"Well, I suspect that it's sporks," Hunk stated matter-of-factly and his suspicion earned him looks from the others that translated to 'Seriously?'. "What? This is an advanced race we're talking about here," he tried to defend his statement. "Surely they've learned that it's foolish to have forks _and_ spoons when one tool will efficiently do the job."

"It looks like it's some sort of liquid though," Mari pointed out, squinting at the cargo and noting the bubbles that sloshed sluggishly and popped when the vessels were moved. "Or maybe it's a goo? I don't know, it's hard to tell from this distance."

"Galran food goo?" Hunk pondered thoughtfully. "Ooh, or maybe it's space lemonade?"

"It's more likely to be the blood of Zarkon's enemies," Lance said grimly.

"Why would he package and transport _that_?" Keith scowled at the Blue Paladin.

"I don't know! I mean, it's more likely to be that than space lemonade. Zarkon's wiped out and enslaved a ton of planets, it wouldn't surprise me if all his ships and tech and stuff run on the bodily fluids of his enemies!" Lance shrugged defensively and Hunk cringed at the idea.

"Ewww…But yeah, he seems evil enough to do that," he agreed, and Pidge rolled her eyes at their conversation.

"Maybe instead of letting your imaginations run wild, we can have this guy tell us what that stuff _actually_ is," she said, gesturing to one of the disabled sentries that she had hooked up to her laptop in an instant. "Okay, Mister Robot. What is coming in and out of this station?"

The sentry beeped and its lights flashed. "Interrogation detected. Initiating lockdown," it droned flatly before going silent once more and slumping forward.

"Mister Robot seems just as stubborn as you, Pidge," Mari teased and Pidge stuck her tongue out at her.

"So, you're not talking, eh?" she smirked challengingly as she turned back to face the droid. Then without missing a beat, she began to type away like a madwoman on her laptop in an attempt to hack the sentry's systems.

"Whoa. Check out this guy," Keith said, pulling their attention back to the loading deck below. A cloaked figure had appeared in front of the mystery containers and appeared to be giving the sentries orders on where to take them in the base. "Whatever's happening here that requires this place to be kept secret must have something to do with that scary dude."

Glancing over at him, Mari saw his scowl deepen and fiery determination light in his eyes. It was a look she knew all too well from their time spent decoding the Blue Lion carvings back on Earth—he always looked like that when he was about to do something risky by himself.

"Keith, don't do it," she warned, her tone chiding.

"I'm going to go check it out," he decided firmly, ignoring her and turning to head towards the doors.

"Dammit, seriously?" Mari groaned. "You can't just walk around here on your own!"

"Yeah, yeah! You're gonna blow our cover, man!" Lance pitched in, and Keith whirled on them with irritation radiating off his features.

"I don't have to listen to either of you," he snapped back, a dangerous bite to his tone. "Neither of you are the leader so stop telling me what to do."

Before anyone else could argue with him, he spun on his heel and disappeared through the doors.

"Ugh! That idiot is gonna get us all caught," Mari growled and she scrambled to her feet to follow after him.

"Wait, no, not you too, Mari!" Lance protested as she scooped up her helmet and slid it onto her head. "We need to stick together and lay low until Shiro and Allura come back!"

"I know! That's why I'm bringing him back here," she affirmed quickly before hurrying towards the exit. "I'll only be a few minutes. Keep me updated if anything happens, okay?"

"No! Mari, think about what you're doing," Lance pleaded. "Don't walk through that door!"

But she simply tapped the side of her helmet and gave him a curt wave before she was gone as well, leaving him, Pidge, and Hunk alone in the control tower.

"I think I told them," Lance decided after a moment and Pidge sighed loudly.

"You are a paragon of leadership, Lance," she muttered sarcastically. "You know Shiro's going to be livid if anything happens to them, right?"

"Let's hope nothing does then," Hunk piped up anxiously and the others nodded in worried agreement.

* * *

Keith was annoyingly fast. Carefully creeping around every corner and straining to keep her footsteps light as she moved, it took Mari what felt like forever to find where he had run off to in the facility. When she had finally caught up to him, he was trailing the hooded individual and the sentries as they carried the glowing cargo deeper into the base. They hadn't seemed to take notice of either of their presences, thank goodness, and Mari let out an inaudible sigh of relief before quietly hurrying along an upper platform near the wall and ducking out of sight when needed as she met Voltron's mulleted hothead. Upon seeing her, Keith's eyes flashed with a mixture of anger and alarm and the pair dove behind a large panel before conversing.

"What are you doing here?" he hissed through clenched teeth, glaring daggers at her momentarily before peeking around the corner so they wouldn't lose sight of their targets.

"I'm making sure you don't get caught, or worse, killed. You shouldn't just go running off by yourself," she scolded quietly.

"I told you not to tell me what to do," he grumbled in reply. "Just go back to the others already. You'll be safer there."

"Okay, one: you're such a hypocrite! I don't have to take orders from you either!" she scoffed, her voice just barely an angry whisper. "And two: 'I'll be safer there'? We're in a Galran base, Keith! Nowhere inside this facility is completely safe!"

"Why do you have to be so difficult?" he huffed exasperatedly. "Shiro is going to be pissed if anything happens to you."

"Nothing will happen to me," she rolled her eyes, growing impatient. "And he won't be mad because he doesn't have to find out that we did this."

"I said no, okay? Just go back already!" Keith continued to insist, but Mari wasn't anywhere close to giving in yet.

"No. Not unless you're coming with me."

"Well I'm not going back until I find out what that stuff is."

"Then I guess you're stuck with me then."

"Mari!"

"You shouldn't be wandering around by yourself here!" she emphasized once more. "But if I can't stop you, the next best thing I can do is go with you for backup…Plus I don't know if I'll be able to find my way back to the control room."

"I don't need _you_ as backup. I can handle myself in a fight," he snorted and she bristled at his cockiness.

"Okay, look," she whispered, taking a deep breath to calm her elevated anger. "There are sentries scattered all over this place and you don't know what that thing down there is capable of." She pointed a finger at the hooded figure beneath them. "I don't care how good your skills are, you're freaking _screwed_ if you get found out and they call for backup. Having another fighter by your side in that sort of situation is better than fighting alone."

Keith's eyes narrowed slightly but he said nothing as he mulled it over. Below them, the sentries and the cloaked creep passed through a massive door at the end of the hall and the dull screeching of gears echoed throughout the hall as the entrance was slowly beginning to close. There was no time to lose before their target became unreachable beyond the towering metal doors, and Keith let out a frustrated groan.

"Fine! Let's go," he relented finally, waving for her to follow him as he jumped off the platform and sprinted for the narrowing entryway, using his jetpack to give him additional boosts forward. Grinning in satisfaction to herself, Mari hurried after him and the two slipped through the doors just as they locked shut.

On the other side, the two sentries that had been carrying the vats of mysterious substance had been reassigned as guards, their backs to the human intruders. Without a sound, save for the swift swish and crunch of blades slicing through metal, Keith and Mari cut them down easily. Staying close to the walls and holding their weapons at the ready, the duo silently crept towards the end of the hall where it opened up to a vast room full of glowing golden containers.

"What is all of this?" Mari murmured as Keith raked his eyes over the row upon rows, stacks upon stacks of identical vessels.

They watched as one of the containers slid down to the end of a conveyor belt that protruded from the upper half of the wall and came to a stop above a large, glass-like orb that was being held up by supports in the the center of the room. Locking into place, the bottom of the tube opened and the glowing liquid cascaded into the glassy ball in a singular swirling stream. The cloaked figure they had been tailing now stood on a raised platform in front of the glowing orb and as he raised his hands in front of it, purple lightning spewed forth from his palms, encircling and electrifying the orb. The golden substance turned an eerie shade of purple and it poured out from the bottom of the sphere into a much, much smaller tube.

"Definitely not space lemonade," Keith muttered without so much as even cracking a smile and a dry chuckle escaped Mari's lips. "Coran, you need to see this," he barely whispered as he activated his helmet communicator and visor cameras.

From the other end of their link, Coran inhaled sharply in surprise. "I've never seen anything like it," he said, the concern and confusion evident in his tone.

"What _is_ that?" Pidge inquired over the comms, having received the live video feed from Keith as well.

There was a curt beeping sound followed by a monotone robotic voice intoning, "The material is quintessence, the substance with the highest known energy per unit volume in the universe."

"Hey, nice job, Pidge! You made him work for us," Lance complimented, and Mari could only assume he was referring to the sentry Pidge had been trying to reprogram.

"What?" Coran gasped disbelief. "Impossible!"

"Raw quintessence material is transported here from throughout the galaxy and refined into standardized Galra fuel requirements," the robot continued.

"Did you guys hear that?" Pidge asked.

"So it's some sort of magical energy being used for fuel…I guess your prediction wasn't too far off the mark, Lance," Mari noted.

"All right! I'm on a roll today!" he gloated happily and she suppressed the urge to sigh and roll her eyes.

"I can't believe this!" Coran exclaimed dreadfully. "They've found a new way to acquire quintessence!"

"Guys, I'm going to steal some of this quint-whatever," Keith decided and he nudged Mari to follow him back down the hall they had come through.

"So, what's the plan here?" she asked as they trekked down another corridor that ended up leading to the other side of the chamber full of quintessence.

"Once that stuff's been transferred into another container, it gets sent out through this door," Keith explained, nodding to the track running along the floor next to their feet. "The next batch that comes out, we'll grab it and get out of here."

"Okay," Mari nodded. "And what do we do if the hooded guy notices us? Fight or flight?"

Keith frowned and diverted his attention to the cloaked figure in question. "We fight."

"…That's it? We just fight?"

"Yes."

"Wow. Such a solid plan, Keith," she commented sarcastically and he scowled.

"Shut up. We're not leaving without this stuff now that we know what it's being used for."

The next container of purple quintessence was sealed and it slid swiftly along the track to be stored elsewhere. Just before it passed the pair, Keith dove for it and grabbed it, landing on the other side of the track and quickly hiding from view again.

'Good job,' Mari mouthed to him, giving him a thumbs up. Keith flashed her a small grin and motioned back down the corridor for them to leave and head back to the central control tower.

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of their necks stood on end and a shiver ran down Mari's spine. Then appearing out of nowhere, the hooded being materialized right behind Keith, and before either human could react, a blast of purple energy sent them flying across the room. The case of quintessence slipped from Keith's grasp and it clattered to the floor several feet away from them, allowing the robed villain to casually pick it up and return it to the track to be carried away with the next batch.

"Okay, plan B!" Keith growled, quickly regaining his footing and manifesting his bayard before charging the cloaked creature. Just as he brought his blade down on his opponent, the enemy disappeared in a cloud of dark smoke before reappearing seconds later at the other end of the chamber. With an angry war cry, the Red Paladin tried attacking again, only for the magical being to dodge once more via teleportation. Keith looked around the room frantically, waiting at the ready for the being to show himself.

Groaning softly, Mari finally picked herself up off the floor, wincing slightly as her newly bruised chest and rump ached at the movement. Nevertheless, she whipped out her staff and activated the spear-tip blade, taking a defensive stance as she moved to stand back-to-back with Keith.

"I'll distract that guy when he reappears again," he barely uttered their new plan of action, his eyes continuously scanning the room. "You take one of those quintessence cases and get back to the others. "

"What about—look out!" she gasped as the cloaked individual came into sight on the platform above them. Purple lighting shot forth from his hands, blasting the ground where they stood, and the duo shouted in alarm as they split up to evade being obliterated by the powerful and relentless attack.

Dust and debris filled the air, and Mari stumbled to a halt, tripping over one of the newly made protrusions in the floor. The smoke was so thick and dark around her, she couldn't even see two feet in front of her. The lightning strikes had ceased for the time being but she was sure that their attacker was only waiting for the air to clear so he could pinpoint the location of his targets again. Or maybe he was just waiting to confirm their deaths by seeing their limp and lifeless bodies on the floor below him. Either way, the enemy was just as blind as her in this very moment and she had to take advantage of it.

The dim teal lights of her helmet visor flickered on and she scanned the room for the next batch of quintessence that was due to leave the room, the computers in her headgear indicating the location of the last tube being filled up beneath the large glass orb. Crouching low to the ground, Mari moved carefully and as quickly as she dared towards it, her heart racing in fear of being spotted before she could snatch it away. Just as the last bit of purple quintessence dripped into the container and it was set on the track to be whisked away, she reached out to grab it when a bolt of energy incinerated the ground where she stood.

A curt scream escaped her lips as she was flung backwards, her weapon flying out of her hands and the wind knocked out of her as she landed roughly on her back. She could see the cloaked creature still standing on his platform above her, his head titled slightly as he stared at her and his expression covered by the narrow bone-white mask he wore on his face.

Suddenly, Keith flew out of the smog, being propelled towards their attacker by his jetpack. The Red Paladin brought his sword down on the enemy with an infuriated grunt, only for the being to teleport himself out of harms way again. When he reappeared, he was standing directly over Mari, a glowing purple hand reaching out to grab her.

"Don't touch her!" Keith spat, his tone radiating absolute rage, and he threw himself off the platform at the hooded figure, ready to impale the guy upon impact. Whirling on the paladin in an instant, the creature held up an energized palm and blocked the bayard's blade with a concentrated ball of purple lightning. Fear flashed across Keith's features for only an instant before the overwhelming power blasted him backwards, sending him flying into a row of the golden quintessence containers with a solid _crack_. He slid down to the ground and hunched over with a groan as he held out his shaking right arm, his eyes widening as he took in the ripped and melted armor and the new purplish burns that had charred the skin on his hand.

"Keith!" Mari gasped, sitting up and trying to stand despite the soreness of her limbs. His bluish-gray eyes immediately flicked to her, his expression one of panic.

"Run! Get away from him!" he yelled and she rolled out of the way just as a glowing hand swiped at her head. "Pidge! We need an extraction now!" Keith barked the request into his helmet comm. "Hurry!"

"I'm on my way!" she affirmed before the line went silent.

With Keith unable to hold his bayard with his injured hand and with Mari's weapon out of reach, their original plans to fight instantly shifted to flight as they dodged about the room, avoiding the lighting attacks as best as they could while they waited for Pidge to pick them up in the Green Lion. Keith should have had the advantage out of the two of them: he was able to use his jetpack to quickly propel himself from platform to platform as he evaded the blasts, while Mari on the other hand was pinned to the ground with nowhere else to run except forwards and backwards. But despite this, the creature was solely adamant on bringing Keith down first, ignoring Mari for the most part unless she tried to dive for her weapon at his feet. And even then he'd simply keep her at bay by blasting warning shots at the ground near her feet.

 _Why make it harder on himself?_ she vaguely wondered as she tried to sneak around him once more. _Why not just shoot the deadly beams at both of us and kill two birds with one stone? Is he trying to preserve the quintessence supply or something?_

Another bolt of lightning flew Keith's way just as he was mid-jump and he barely summoned his shield as the shot slammed into it. The force from the impact sent Keith spiraling through the air and he landed roughly on one of the upper platforms, rolling onto the conveyor belt that was moving a new vat of golden quintessence towards the glassy ball in the center of the room. The hooded figure teleported again and materialized in front of Keith, trapping the paladin between the quintessence tube and himself. Keith gripped his bayard in his left hand and raised it protectively in front of him as the cloaked being prepared to fire another deadly volt at him.

Then without warning, the whole building began to rumble violently and the creature lost his balance as the ground shook beneath him. His finishing blow misfired and it struck the quintessence tube behind Keith, the glass shattering and the golden substance spilling all over the paladin. Above them, the ceiling was cracking rapidly and Mari inhaled sharply as chunks of the metal plating began to crash onto the floor around her. She dove for the exit and pressed herself against the walls just as the entire ceiling exploded open and the Green Lion burst into the room. It landed on all fours, sending massive tremors through the ground and fracturing the floor around its paws.

"Get in! We've got to get Shiro and Allura!" Pidge called down to them as the Green Lion lowered its head to the ground and held its mouth ajar for Keith and Mari to enter.

Keith jumped down from the conveyor belt, snatching up Mari's staff before stomping up Green's boarding ramp. Having to run around the rear end of the lion and pick her way through the debris and thick black smoke, Mari hurried as fast as she could to the lion's maw. When it finally came into view, Keith was waiting for her at the top of the ramp right in front of the entrance to the cockpit.

"Hurry up!" he pressed, gesturing for her to pick up the pace with his good hand. "We've still got to help Shiro!"

"I'm going as fast as I can!" she spat back, beginning to pump her arms even harder. She was going to make it, the ramp was just a few steps in front of her. She'd get on the lion, they'd rescue Allura and Shiro from being captured, and then they'd all be safely back on the Castle with Coran in the next hour.

Suddenly the back of her neck prickled and there was a whoosh of air behind her. A blast of scorching hot purple energy pounded the floor in front of her feet and she yelped as she stumbled backwards…right into the arms of their robed and masked attacker. A pair of cold and dry hands slowly wrapped around her wrist and throat, each one glowing purple and pulsing with an energy that seeped deep through the fabric of Mari's space suit into her skin and paralyzing her.

From the safety of the Green Lion, Keith's eyes widened in fear and his bayard manifested in his left hand again as he began to charge back down the ramp towards her. He was screaming her name and he desperately reached out his right hand to grab her, but it was too late. She and the hooded being were enshrouded in a dark and chilling mist that sent tingles all throughout her body and Keith and the lion slipped out of sight. The last lucid thought she had before blacking out completely was fascination at how quickly Keith's right hand had healed from those burns.

* * *

** **Please feel free to leave a comment/review down below! They are much appreciated & encourage me to keep writing this fic :D**

 ****Feel free to check out my tumblr too, which is pufftheninja.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note:** Hello all! No spoilers here, but wow...Season 7 was an emotional rollercoaster and I loved it! But anyways, here's another chapter for you.

 ****I do not own Voltron: Legendary Defender!**

* * *

Mari was gone.

She was gone, she was gone, damn it all she was _gone_!

Keith's head was abuzz with this awful truth, his heart racing and his jaw clenched tightly as he stumbled towards the Green Lion's cockpit entrance. The horrible reality that had unfolded before him just moments ago replayed itself over and over again in his mind, that creature's ugly hands closing around Mari's neck and arm like a vise before dragging her into whatever spell that allowed it to teleport. She had disappeared right along with that hooded freak and now neither were anywhere to be found in the quintessence chamber.

His anger and increasing despair fueling him, Keith burst into the cockpit, causing Hunk and Lance to startle and earning him a concerned look from Pidge.

"Where's Mari?" she asked, glancing behind him only to see that he was alone. Her eyes slid down to the retractable staff that he was clutching in his hand and they widened in alarm before flicking back up to Keith's face, looking for an explanation.

"That thing took her," he briefed, struggling to keep the franticness out of his voice and keep it level. "He—He just grabbed her and disappeared with her."

" _What?!_ " Lance shrilled, standing straighter and taking a step closer to Keith, panic contorting his usually relaxed features. "Where'd he take her? If she's still on the base we can't just leave her!"

"I know! I know!" Keith huffed as he brushed past Lance and hurried to stand behind the pilot's chair. "Pidge can you find her? Scan for her or something?"

"I'm already on it!" she relayed, her fingers flying over Green's control panels. "I'm tracking her helmet's signal right now!"

Behind them, Hunk had begun wringing his hands together anxiously, whimpering to himself, "Oh no, oh no. This is not good, man. Not good at all! Mari's gone to who knows where, and—oh holy crow, Shiro's gonna _murder_ us all if we don't find her! I just know it!"

Shiro…Holy crow, that's right! They still had to extract him and Allura, Keith realized. But Mari…What about her? Lance was right, they couldn't just abandon her if she was still trapped somewhere inside the hub. But Shiro and Allura were waiting for them! They needed to get to that ship and help them escape before they were both captured or killed. And their team really couldn't afford to lose their Black Paladin nor their wormhole-making pilot of the Castle of Lions. Mari on the other hand was expendable, and a hot pool of guilt settled in Keith's stomach.

Shiro would be so disappointed in him if he ever shared that thought. According to their leader, they were all one big happy family that loved and protected each other equally. But no matter what Shiro said about everyone being cherished and treated the same, Mari was really the only one of them that was actually his blood kin and that automatically put her on a higher level of importance than the rest of them. As much as it pained Keith to admit it, _she_ was Shiro's real family, not him or anyone else. And because of that, insuring Mari's well-being would always be Shiro's top priority. He would never abandon her, never even consider sacrificing her for the greater good.

"I found her location!" Pidge's voice abruptly yanked Keith out of his churning thoughts. "She's somewhere on the same ship as Shiro and Allura!"

"What are we waiting for then?" Lance exclaimed, gesturing madly towards the front window. "Let's go get them all in one fell swoop!"

The Green Lion leaped through the opening it had created in the roof just minutes beforehand and circled around the base towards the docked Galran ship. The cruiser's engines were glowing dimly as it powered up and prepared for departure via hyper-speed, and just before it shot forward into oblivion, an escape pod zipped out of one of the hangars. Even as it floated slowly towards the Green Lion, a lump formed in Keith's throat as he realized with dread that they were too late. Shiro and Allura had been able to escape, but Mari…there was no way that she would have been able to meet up with them in such a short amount of time. Shiro and Allura didn't even know that she had been captured and taken onto the ship. The highlighted dot that had been blinking on Pidge's screen just seconds ago, alerting them of Mari's location, had blipped out of existence as the signal was lost.

"No!" Pidge and Lance screamed in unison, and Pidge even slammed an angry fist down on her controls. Hunk looked terrified to the point of tears and Keith's grip on the retractable staff tightened until his knuckles turned white.

Mari was gone.

God, Shiro really _was_ going to kill them.

As the Green Lion allowed the Galran escape pod to enter through the hatch in its underbelly, the tension grew thicker in the air and there was a building sense of dread as everyone waited for their two leaders to enter the cockpit only to see that one of their team was missing. The dull thump of a set of heavy footsteps sounded just outside of the doors and Keith swallowed thickly as they slid open and Shiro entered alone, looking tired and distraught. He shuffled towards the group, refusing to look at any one of them as he placed one hand on Pidge's headrest to steady himself. His eyes were closed and he was inhaling sharply as he tried to even out his breathing.

"Shiro?" Lance finally asked quietly, his tone hesitant and cautious. "Are you okay? Where's Allura?"

Shiro exhaled shakily and his grip on the chair tightened. "No, I…Allura, she—she sacrificed herself to save me," he finally admitted quietly, his voice strained and low.

"So, she's still on that ship too?" Pidge questioned and Shiro's eyes cracked open.

"What do you mean 'too'?" he said, his frown deepening as he looked at her. Pidge immediately blanched and her lips pressed together into a thin line before she quickly faced forward, unwilling to meet his gaze as her eyes began to water.

"That ship that Allura's on—the one heading to Zarkon's Central Command right as we speak? Mari is…on it too," Hunk provided, his voice coming out small and timid, and he flinched as Shiro jerked upwards and stumbled backwards several steps.

" _WHAT?_ " Their leader's eyes were wide as they frantically scanned the room, his lips mouthing the numbers one through four as he counted the others in the cockpit. Keith, Lance, Pidge, Hunk, all present and accounted for and staring at him with a mixture of fear, guilt, and pity in their eyes. Allura was gone. Mari was gone. Their team was two members short, and Shiro's heart clenched in terror.

"Right before we were boarding Green, someone— _something_ took her," Keith hurriedly explained, his eyes just barely meeting Shiro's. "It grabbed her and, like, teleported or something with her onto the battleship."

"What, like magic?" Lance asked and Keith just shook his head unsurely, glaring at the ground angrily as his fists trembled.

The color from Shiro's face drained away in an instant. "It was one of them," he muttered, his head beginning to throb dully and his prosthetic aching where flesh met metal. "It was one of those bastards! Dammit! No, no…"

He gasped loudly as a sharp pain laced up his right shoulder and his vision swam. His head pounded intensely, like someone was hammering the inside of his skull. He felt himself drop to one knee and the others cried out their concerns as they hovered around him, trying to figure out how to help. But their voices went unheard as Shiro's ears rang and he squeezed his eyes shut, wishing desperately for the pain to go away. When he reopened them, the Green Lion's cockpit had melted away around him and he was in a chamber with dark gray walls and bright purple overhead lights shining down on him. His limbs were strapped tightly to a cold metal bed, rendering him completely immobile. On either side of him were two trolleys that held an array of surgical instruments and small vials containing multicolored liquids. They gleamed in the purple-tinged atmosphere and Shiro's heart nearly leapt into his throat just looking at them. He could smell the awful lingering scent of antiseptic in the air and the sudden taste of iron on his tongue made his stomach churn.

Holy crow, holy crow he was _back_ , he realized vaguely. Back in those damn Galra labs. No, no, no, he couldn't be back!

His breath was coming in short gasps and Shiro tried thrashing desperately against his restraints, but they wouldn't give. His forehead was beaded with sweat and his eyes widened as those unnerving masked creatures hovered over him, their gnarled and cold hands holding him in place as the sound of a screeching power saw abruptly filled his ears. There was a sickening crunching noise and a mortified scream escaped his lips as the entire right side of his body flared with pain. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes, and a chillingly familiar laugh echoed off the walls of the room as he felt a hand gently card through his hair and caress his face.

Zarkon's wretched witch manifested over him, her narrowed yellow eyes glinting savagely and her grin showing off her sharp fangs. "My dear Champion," she purred fondly and he shuddered as she reached out to touch him again.

"—hiro! Shiro!"

Shiro gasped like a fish out of water, his breathing labored as Keith's voice suddenly cut through the flashback and pulled him back to reality. He was back in the Green Lion's cockpit, sitting hunched over on the floor with his head clutched in his hands, his right one glowing faintly as it gradually deactivated. Keith was kneeling down beside him, one hand on Shiro's back and the other on his bicep to help steady him. Keith's brow was furrowed and his blue-gray eyes shined with fear and concern as they stayed trained on their leader. Lance, Hunk, and Pidge wore similar expressions, each of them hesitantly hovering over him.

"Shiro," Keith said again, softer this time. "What wrong? Are you okay?"

Inhaling deeply to steel himself some, Shiro swallowed. "I-I'm fine," he stammered, his voice cracked and wavering. He cleared his throat and nodded, repeating more clearly this time, "I'm fine, just…I'm fine now."

The Black Paladin's helmet sat on the floor nearby, having been abandoned. Shiro couldn't recall for the life of him when he had yanked it off, and he mutely reached for it and placed it back on his dully throbbing head. He moved to stand up on slightly shaking legs, but Keith instantly pushed him back down to sit.

"Rest for a bit," he murmured. It wasn't an order but it wasn't a suggestion either. Sighing, Shiro chose not to argue and sat back against the wall as his nerves calmed. The others were silent as Pidge drove them closer and closer to the Castle, their morale low as they wondered how to proceed.

Finally, Lance voiced the question that was on all their minds. "So what's the plan for getting Allura and Mari back?"

"It's too late to go after that ship," Shiro admitted grimly, sitting up straighter and his expression rigid as he addressed the team as a whole. "We're going to have to attack the Galran Central Command."

"What?" Hunk squeaked, his complexion paling.

"That's way too dangerous!" Pidge pitched in.

"It doesn't matter how dangerous it is," Shiro stated firmly. "We can't leave them with Zarkon."

"But you said going there would be a huge mistake," Hunk protested. "You said for us to attack that place head-on would be the _dumbest_ possible thing we could _ever_ do."

Shiro's hands clenched into fists as he struggled to remain calm. Allura, Voltron's princess and essential heart of the team, and Mari, his sister and a human ally of the Voltron Paladins…both girls differed in rank, but they were still so dear to Shiro. They were both special and just as important to him as the other wonderfully gifted individuals on their team. And now they were in the hands of those monsters, of the _bitch_ that had stolen his arm and inflicted a years worth of torture and agony upon him. Who knows what she and the rest of Zarkon's minions could do— _would_ _do_ to Allura and Mari in the time that it would take the rest of them to figure out a plan of attack.

A flash of white-hot anger surged through Shiro's veins at the thought of it all, and he grit his teeth as he pulled himself to his feet. "I know," he almost growled in response to Hunk's points. "But now we don't have any other choice."

* * *

Returning to the realm of consciousness, a soft moan escaped Mari's lips as she pried open her eyes. Her entire body felt heavy, and as she weakly lifted herself up off the floor into a sitting position, pins and needles prickled her numb limbs. She blinked twice at the chunky metal cuffs that had been placed around her wrists before carefully taking in her surroundings, her head still a bit fuzzy on what had happened and what was currently going on.

The room she was in was dark save for the dimply glowing lamps embedded high in the wall. There was one door with a slit at the top on one side of the room, but other than that there were no windows and no furniture whatsoever in the enclosed area. She was pretty sure there were no rooms in the Castle of Lions that resembled the one she was now trapped in, and her breath caught in her throat as the last hour came rushing back to her.

She had gone to stop Keith from wandering around the Galran hub alone, only to end up accompanying him as he trailed the magic-using, masked creep in the robes. There had been fighting, a lot of purple lighting and smoke, and then just as Pidge came to their rescue, the hooded guy had grabbed her and whisked her away to who knows where.

Mari's heart beat sped up and her breathing was on the verge of becoming panicked gasps. Her hands flew to her hips to grasp her weapon for reassurance, but her fingers only closed around empty air. That's right, Keith had picked up her staff before boarding Green. Dammit.

 _Okay, calm down, Mariko_ , she tried to console herself, moving to sit cross-legged and tucking her bound hands in her lap. _You won't gain anything from having a freak out. Patience yields focus, right? Take a deep breath and assess your situation._

She glanced around the empty room again and pursed her lips together. The lack of furnishings and door panels suggested that she was in a cell of some sort, definitely of Galran design. But was she on a ship or was she still stuck in the hub? She had no way of knowing with how long she had been out.

 _Whatever. That doesn't really matter now_ , she told herself, impatiently beginning to drum her fingers against her shins. _What really matters is how to get out._

Someone was bound to come for her at some point, she was sure. Even without a weapon, Mari figured she could take down a sentry or two barehanded even if her hands had been tied. She could tackle them and wretch their blasters away, right? But if there was more than a couple of those or if one of those robed guys ended up being on the other side of the cell door, she knew running let alone pulling off a successful escape would be impossible.

Okay, so what else could she do? Her helmet was still on her person, maybe she could send a transmission out to the Castle? She activated her visor and it flickered to life, casting a gentle teal blue glow over her body.

"Castle of Lions, come in," she barely uttered into the mics, but her demand was met with scrambled static and a red error sign popped up on screen to indicate that she had no signal.

"Dammit!" she hissed, unable to hold her flaring temper back and slapping her palms furiously against the floor. The sound echoed dully around the room and she let out a loud sigh as she leaned back against the wall.

"…Mari? Is—Is that you?"

Mari bolted upright at the sound of the princess's voice coming from directly behind her, and she spun around to gape at the wall. "Allura?" she whispered incredulously, knocking twice on the chunk of metal separating them. "What are you doing here?"

"I could be asking you the same thing," she replied bitterly from her own cell. "I was captured trying to depart the Galran ship Shiro and I snuck aboard."

"So that's where we are right now? On the ship heading for Zarkon's HQ?"

"I'm afraid so."

Mari's heart froze. "Wait, what about my brother? Is he here too?"

"Shiro's safe, I promise," Allura assured her. "I threw him on an escape pod. It was either him or me and there was no way I was allowing both of us to be caught, so…I chose him."

An involuntary sigh of relief escaped Mari's lips. At least all of the paladins had escaped, meaning forming Voltron was still a possibility.

"But what about you? How and why the quiznak are you here?" Allura demanded, not even bothering to hide the anger in her voice.

"Keith…kinda split up from the group to investigate and I kinda followed him. And long story short, some creep in a mask and robe took me," Mari mumbled guilty and Allura groaned.

"No…Mari—"

"But hey! On the bright side, we found out what that base was being used for," she quickly added. "They're storing and converting a ton of quintessence there."

"That is not good," Allura murmured grimly. "I knew there was something more to that place."

There was the slight sound of shifting armor and shuffling footsteps as Allura sat down and leaned against the wall of her cell. A tired sigh escaped her lips, and Mari fumbled over what to say next.

"I tried to contact the Castle but my comms can't get a signal," she finally said, resting her head back until it touched the hard metal between them.

"As are mine. Our signals are being purposely blocked, no doubt," Allura surmised. "But even if we could reach the Castle, what good would that do us? I'm sure the paladins have already figured out where you are and they know exactly where we are headed."

"Do you think they'll come for us?" Mari wondered aloud despite already knowing the answer. "Even though it's going to be crazy dangerous attacking the Galran HQ head on?"

"If they know what's good for them, then they won't," Allura huffed a little harsher than intended. "The fate of the universe rests in Voltron's hands. The paladins would be fools to bring it straight to Zarkon."

Mari hesitated, bringing her knees up to her chest and hugging them tightly as she mulled over the princess's words. The logical side of her agreed with Allura: it would be incredibly stupid of their team to challenge the emperor himself and at his home base, no less. Even with all their training, the paladins were still inexperienced in their fights, and the Castle of Lions could only provide so much support before its defensive systems started to shut down. But the thought of her and Allura being forever stuck in Zarkon's possession, at the mercy of the Galra and subjected to endless torture, made Mari's heart clench in fear and tears sting in her eyes. She didn't want to be a prisoner abandoned by her comrades, by her newfound friends, by her own _brother_ , and she was sure as hell Allura didn't want that either.

"Is it really foolish to want to save your friends? To want to save your family?" Mari murmured quietly, but before Allura could respond the entire ship shuttered as it came to a halt. They had reached the heart of the Galra Empire, Zarkon's Central Command.

A series of heavy footsteps resounded in the halls, growing louder and louder as whoever—or _whatever_ —was outside approached their cell doors. Allura let out a miffed if not mildly panicked "quiznak" and the two hurriedly scrambled to their feet as the footfalls stopped in front of the princess's chamber. Through the walls, Mari could hear the soft beeping and whoosh of the door as it unlocked and slid open, followed by a raspy female voice ordering coldly, "Come with me."

Allura said nothing in reply and Mari assumed she was complying for now. There were more footsteps as the princess was guided out of her cell and Mari froze in place as a figure suddenly blocked the light entering through the slit in her door. There was a long pause as whoever was peering in at her observed her, making her blood boil and her skin crawl in a combination of anger and fear.

"Who is this human you brought?" the same scratchy female voice demanded of another individual that had accompanied her to help escort the princess. "A paladin of one of the Voltron lions?"

"No, High Priestess, Haggar," a male replied, his tone just as chilling and eerie sounding. "She was fighting alongside the Red Paladin, but she seems to be just a mere ally of theirs."

"Then why did you bring her?" the woman—Haggar— spat in dismay. "I have no interest or use for such a pathetic and weak creature. Dispose of her!"

"Her quintessence is like the Champion's," he intervened cooly. "It is almost identical to his."

The High Priestess was silent for several ticks and Mari swallowed nervously, waiting with bated breath for her to respond. Finally, the locking mechanism on her cell door clicked and green-tinted light poured into the room as it opened. Standing there blocking the way of escape were three of the mask-wearing creatures along with Allura trapped between them. Her skin had returned to its normal color but she was still wearing the rather large uniform of the Galran officer. Her brow was furrowed and her bright blue eyes glanced nervously between Mari and Haggar, who was stepping deeper into the cell towards the human girl.

Unlike the other masked beings, the High Priestess was much shorter and her robe was fairly different in design. She still had a hood draped over her head, but she wore no mask, allowing Mari to see her long white hair, bluish skin, and the two red vertical markings that ran from her glowing yellow eyes all the way down to her chin. The aura she gave off was dangerous and unnerving and Mari reflexively took a cautious step back from the woman. This seemed to amuse Haggar to some degree as the corners of her mouth twitched upwards for a second.

She looked the human up and down contemplatively for a moment, her sharp eyes practically piercing Mari's soul before they came to a stop on her face. Narrowed gold bored into unsteady gray and a hint of shocked recognition flashed across the priestess's features. But she quickly recovered, her frown returning as she repeated what she had said to Allura.

"Come with me."

* * *

** **Please feel free to leave a comment/review down below! They are much appreciated & encourage me to keep writing this fic :D**

 ****Feel free to check out my tumblr too, which is pufftheninja.**


	10. Chapter 10

**I do not own Voltron: Legendary Defender!

* * *

Their walk through the Galran Central Command was an eerily quiet one as Allura and Mari were quickly corralled by Haggar and her lackeys down a series of dark and winding corridors. With each turn that they made and with each elevator they took to a new level, it was becoming harder and harder for Mari to keep track of the way they had come. They had passed by a couple of creepy looking labs and a few control centers, but nothing resembling an aircraft hangar or escape pods. She doubted the High Priestess was foolish enough to take them on a route that revealed such locations anyways. Nevertheless, it was becoming increasingly evident that the facility was massive, much more so than she had expected, and she feared that their chances of escaping on their own were dwindling.

Mari swallowed and quietly took deep breaths, trying to calm her nerves as best as she could. Next to her, Allura gave her the barest of nudges and the most reassuring smile she could muster up in their situation. But the princess was just as scared as her: Allura's smile faded as soon as it had appeared and her jaw was clenched. Her brilliant blue eyes were bright with worry as they glanced about the Galran HQ and her fists were clenched so tightly in front of her, her knuckles were paling.

They were led into yet another elevator and the platform beneath them hummed as it rose up through the floor, bringing them into a vast and long throne room with floor-to-ceiling windows running on all sides. A bulky and broad-shouldered Galran donned in a helmet, cape, and armor loomed in front of them at one end of the room, peering impassively out the glass at the stars. Haggar broke off from their group, approaching him first while her servants stayed back with the human and the princess.

"I have brought them, Sire," she announced once she reached his side, and the massive Galran shifted so he was facing the prisoners. His expression remained unreadable as he just stared at the Altean and the Earthling through glowing emotionless eyes, but the way he stood there at his full height, confidently towering over everyone in the room and radiating power and authority, filled Mari with a sense of unease. This man was incredibly strong and dangerous and he was fully aware of it. He had to be the head honcho, their main foe in this galactic war, Emperor Zarkon.

Finally he drawled out slowly, his voice deep and booming, "Princess Allura."

Allura inhaled sharply and her face contorted in pure rage. "You monster!" she screamed furiously, abruptly charging towards him. "You destroyed Altea!"

Clucking softly in displeasure, Haggar protectively stepped in front of the emperor and lifted an illuminated hand towards the princess, her palm sparking and crackling with magic energy. Before Allura could close the gap between her and Zarkon, she froze mid-step and gasped as her body went rigid and she was lifted at least a foot off the ground. Then with one simple flick of Haggar's wrist, she was roughly thrown onto the floor in front of their feet. Allura moaned as she rolled onto her side to glare at the witch and her master.

"Voltron is going to put an end to your empire!" she growled fiercely, her normally kind and caring eyes now flooded with hatred as she glowered at the enemy.

Her threat didn't even faze Zarkon though, as if he had heard the same spiel from all of his opposers right before he absolutely _crushed them_ underfoot. "No, it will only make me more powerful. Your father knew that as well as I. That's why he led me to believe he destroyed it all those years ago," he assured her, his voice chillingly calm. "But now your new paladins will come for you, and they will deliver Voltron to me, and with it, the key to unimaginable power."

"They won't," she insisted. Her tone remained determined and her voice unwavering, but Mari caught the fear flickering across her features. Allura was lying to them, to herself really. She knew their team too well—Even if it was suicide, the paladins would do anything to try to get to her, to save their princess. Zarkon was right: they were coming whether Allura wanted them to or not.

One of the hooded servants stepped forward and pulled Allura to her feet, dragging her away from the Emperor and Haggar to stand next to Mari again. She was absolutely fuming, the way her body was all tense and her expression twisted into a permanent snarl as she watched Zarkon through murderous eyes. Mari had never seen her so angry before, and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't at least a little bit scared of Allura right now.

Haggar's yellow eyes flicked to the human suddenly and she gestured to their second captive. "What of the Earthling, My Lord?" she inquired and Zarkon's eyes immediately shifted towards the younger girl. "She has nearly the same quintessence pattern as the Champion. Some similar physical features as well. It has made me rather… _curious_."

Zarkon stared at her in silence for a moment, taking her in. Mari could've sworn the corners of his mouth twitched upwards into a smirk and an involuntary shudder ran down her spine. She clenched her teeth nervously, her heart pounding inside her chest as she awaited his command.

"Do what you'd like with her," he said finally, waving his witch away as he returned to gazing out the window, and the way Haggar grinned in excitement made Mari's heart leap into her throat.

Without another word from Zarkon, Haggar and her servants pulled Allura and Mari back onto the platform they had entered on and they were lowered through the floor. Stepping out of the elevator, the High Priestess turned to her attendants with a mischievous, if not manic, glint in her eyes.

"Take the princess to a cell," she instructed them, gesturing curtly down the hall on their right. Then nodding to the corridor on their left she added, "And bring the human to my main lab."

Mari could feel the blood rushing out of her face and she looked at Haggar in alarm, her heart rate immediately spiking. " _What?_ " she managed, her voice coming out as a terrified squeak.

The anger distorting Allura's features instantly melted away into fear. " _What_?!" she exclaimed, panic leaking into her tone as she whipped her head towards Haggar. "What are you going to do to her?"

The ends of Haggar's lips curled up into another malevolent smile as she answered simply, " _Interrogation_."

Two of the hooded creatures firmly grasped the princess's biceps and began to forcefully guide her down the right hall while Mari was nudged towards the other. She was being sent to a _lab_ for "interrogation"? No good would come from this, she was sure of that. Her survival instincts overriding any sense of logic, Mari thrashed and squirmed against her single guard, kicking him, biting, shouting, and elbowing as she tried to break free at all costs. But his hold on her was like steel and she could feel that strange tingling sensation beginning to seep through her clothes and into her muscles as he used his magic to sap her strength.

Down the other hall, she could hear Allura grunting as she fought against her own escorts. Her eyes were bright with fear and she began shouting desperately for her companion.

"Please! She has nothing to do with this!" the princess screeched, her inhuman strength even posing a challenge to contain by her cloaked captors. "Please, you already have me, just _let her go_!"

"She is an affiliate of Voltron, making her an automatic enemy of the emperor. Be grateful we are not executing her immediately for her crimes," Haggar spat in dismay. Then chuckling to herself she added, "Besides, her connection to your Black Paladin has peaked my interest. She may be of use to us yet…A new plaything for me to experiment on, perhaps?"

Allura gnashed her teeth and the fury in her tone was overwhelming as she shouted, "She is _not_ your toy! I swear, if you hurt her, I'll—!"

The witch's bitter laughter cut her off, and Haggar just sneered at the princess. "Your threats mean nothing here. You are _nothing_ without your paladins," she jeered. "It will only be a matter of time before they arrive to collect you. And once they fail and all the Voltron Lions are in our possession, they will watch as their pathetic princess is killed. Their surrender will have been a futile one."

"They will _never_ hand over the lions," Allura snarled darkly, but the High Priestess remained unconvinced and she completely disregarded the statement.

"We shall see about that, princess," she replied lowly through another evil grin, and with a dismissive nodded of her head, Allura was hauled out of sight, cursing and screaming and pleading for Mari to stay strong.

Mari was alone with Haggar and the remaining lackey now, the heavy silence blanketing them as they made their way down the hall. The hands holding her were hot and flaring with energy as the fingers dug into her arms, the magic they held sending tingles all throughout her body and depleting her strength to fight. Her own fingers felt numb from clenching them into fists for so hard and so long, and keeping her nerves in check was becoming more difficult with each step they took away from Allura. It felt like a block of ice had settled in her stomach and she swallowed thickly, her mouth having gone dry. Her heart was beating loudly like a drum inside of her chest, and she was sure Haggar and her escort could hear its rapid thrums.

She couldn't remember the last time she had been this terrified. She was at the heart of the Galra Empire, at the mercy of Zarkon's magicians, and she had caught the interest of possibly the worst one of the bunch. Her only ally in this entire damn facility had been ripped away from her, leaving her alone for "interrogation" and whatever torture _that_ entailed. She was facing this predicament alone now. The paladins, Coran, Allura, Shiro…none of them could save her now.

Mari's eyes stung and she glared at the witch's back, channeling all her hatred through her stare and hoping that by some miracle, the woman would spontaneously explode under her gaze. But of course, no such thing happened, and she was led further and further into the Central Command with her energy gradually being drained and her fear building with each step.

By the time they reached their destination—a metal door that looked identical to all the others they had passed on their way here—Mari was dragging her feet, her legs feeling like jello and quivering slightly from lack of stamina and an abundance of dread. The doors swished open upon their approach and she was instantly hit with the pungent, stomach-churning scent of cleaning chemicals she often smelled in hospitals and doctors' offices. Inside the room, a metal slab of a bed sat in the middle with carts full of tools and vials of mysterious liquids flanking it. Blaring purple lights hung overhead and what looked like a cryo-pod sat in the corner, but it was full of glowing, bubbling, translucent pink liquid. The walls were lined with shelves that housed larger containers and heftier equipment—such as _saws_ , and her heart nearly stopped at the sight of the jagged blades—as well as miscellaneous hardware, including some that resembled limbs.

"What the _hell_ is all of this?" The mortified whisper of a question escaped her lips before she could stop herself, and Haggar turned to her with an sinister glint in her eyes.

"That fear in your eyes is so ravishingly familiar," she mused, her voice almost nostalgic. "What is your relationship to the Champion, I wonder?"

Mari pressed her mouth into a thin line and just glowered at the High Priestess, refusing to answer. She couldn't speak, she _wouldn't_ speak. No matter what happened, no matter how much they hurt her, she couldn't give anything away about herself or the team. She can't, she can't, she absolutely _must not_.

Haggar pursed her lips and her golden eyes raked skeptically over the stubborn human. "Refusing to answer? What a foolish girl…" she concluded to herself with a huff of semi-amused laughter. "No matter. I will pry everything you know about the Voltron Paladins out of you one way or another. Their strengths, their weaknesses, _everything_. Your interrogation begins _now_."

* * *

"Anything?" Shiro asked desperately for what was probably the hundredth time. He was hovering anxiously behind Lance's chair and squinting at the Blue Paladin's screen. For the past couple vargas, they had been scouring the blueprints of Zarkon's Central Command that they had acquired from their less-than-pleasant adventure to the Galran hub.

"There's just no way in," Lance groaned, sitting back defeatedly. "They'll have us tracked from every direction."

"There's got to be something," Shiro sighed frustratedly, taking a step back to give Lance some space. "Keep looking."

Time was rapidly ticking away. Each second they wasted here, stuck and without a plan, was another moment closer that Allura and Mari could be to death. The thought struck sheer terror into Shiro's heart, and he quickly shook his head and inhaled deeply to steady himself before he had a panic attack. He had already lost it once today back in the Green Lion, he couldn't afford to break down again. Not while they were in the middle of figuring out a plan. Not in front of the others who were already so scared and looking to him for guidance, for stability.

Shiro's eyes flickered to each of his teammates as they worked furiously at their respective stations, trying their best to find some sort of entry point into the heavily fortified Galra HQ. Lance and Hunk looked tired but determined in their search while Pidge just seemed flat out frustrated with her lack of results. Coran stood in front of his control panel, his back to the Black Paladin as he scanned the area around the Central Command. Shiro could tell the Altean was still angry with him and the hot pool of guilt sitting in his stomach only grew—he had lost Coran's princess, one of the last Alteans, to Zarkon's minions, after all. And Keith…Keith had been quiet ever since they boarded the Castle, even more so than usual. He sat on the Red Paladin's chair just glaring at his screen, his bluish-gray eyes narrowed as they swept over the HQ's layout repeatedly. A white metal rod was clutched firmly in his hands, Mari's retractable staff, Shiro realized.

During the remainder of their journey back to the Castle in the Green Lion, Keith had curtly filled him in on what had happened after he had left the base with Allura. Keith had run off to investigate the hub on his own and Mari had followed him in the hopes of bringing him back to the rest of the team. But they'd ended up finding a hidden supply of a material called quintessence—a powerful type of energy, apparently—and they got caught up in a battle with some sort of spell-casting creature wearing a cloak and mask.

Relaying the story to Coran once they were at the Castle, he identified them as Druids. They were Zarkon's servants, more specifically, _Haggar's_ servants. She was the Emperor's right hand and close advisor, a vicious sorceress that Shiro was unfortunately well acquainted with. She had given him the prosthetic now grafted to his right shoulder. Whenever he wasn't fighting in the Gladiator Arena, she had been the one responsible for torturing him, experimenting on him, doing who the hell knows what to him in those awful, _awful_ laboratories of hers. And now, Mari was in the same place as that monster of a woman, and Shiro pleaded to the universe that Haggar would show no interest in her and just _leave her alone_.

A brief image of his little sister strapped to a bed, her stomach sliced open and blood splattered everywhere along the floor and her body, flashed through his mind. Her usually twinkling eyes that matched his own were now dull and fogged over, the light of life completely snuffed out of them. It made Shiro's head spin and his stomach churn. He felt like he was going to throw up.

 _Breathe, Shirogane_ , he hazily encouraged himself, closing his eyes and taking another deep and calming breath to steel his nerves. _You've got to keep it together for the others' sakes. For Allura, for Mari. They're both fine, they're both fine. We'll find them before anything bad can be done to them. Patience. Yields. Focus._

Straightening, Shiro reopened his eyes and glanced around the room again at his teammates, their presence giving him courage. At least they were safe. He hadn't lost anyone else in this new family of his, thank God, and he was sure as hell going to get back their missing members.

His gaze landed on Keith again who was still glaring daggers at his screen. He was holding the staff so tightly now his knuckles were turning white. His face softening in concern, Shiro moved towards the Red Paladin's seat.

Keith's eyes instantly snapped up to Shiro in surprise, but he quickly averted them, guiltily staring down at the weapon he held.

"Shiro, I…I'm sorry." His voice was quiet but sincere, still too ashamed to look Shiro in the eyes. "This is all my fault. This is just like that incident on Arus all over again."

"…Keith, no it's not."

But Keith furiously shook his head and plowed on, "I shouldn't have left the group. She would still be here if I hadn't. She wanted to make sure I wouldn't get caught or cornered, but she just got captured instead, and—and now?" He paused, screwing his eyes shut in anger as the scene of Mari's capture played over and over again inside his mind. "She's just… _gone_."

Shiro sighed softly to himself and carefully placed a comforting hand on Keith shoulder. He could feel the younger paladin tense up beneath his fingers, but Keith made no move to shrug away from the touch.

"Keith, it's not your fault," Shiro said calmly, pushing away the panic that had previously been threatening to boil over and consume him. "It's not, I swear. If anything, it's mine. I let Mari and Allura come on this mission…I was supposed to protect them."

"We all were," Keith said bitterly, finally bringing his head up to look at Shiro. His eyes were sad and full of remorse and fear of…rejection? Was he afraid that Shiro was mad at him? Shiro's heart clenched painfully, but he kept his gaze steady as he looked at Keith. It was true he didn't blame Keith, not one bit. Not even a shred of his being was angry with him. Shiro could never bring himself to be mad at Keith. _Never_.

"Don't beat yourself up over this, Keith," he said, giving the Red Paladin's shoulder a gentle squeeze and a small and hopefully reassuring smile. "What's done is done. We have to keep looking forward and that means focusing on figuring out how to get them back, okay?"

Keith hesitated for a moment, the worry and self-blame in his expression lessening just a bit. He nodded in confirmation and tried to smile back, but it came out more as a grimace.

"Allura and Mari are strong, they can take of themselves," Shiro murmured, trying to encourage Keith just as much as he was trying to convince himself. "They'll be fine."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** So just a heads up: I'm going back to school next week, so my updates will most likely become less frequent than weekly or bi-weekly like they have been this summer. I promise to update when I can though, and good luck to everyone who's already started school!

** **Please feel free to leave a comment/review down below! They are much appreciated & encourage me to keep writing this fic :D**

 ****Feel free to check out my tumblr too, which is pufftheninja.**


	11. Chapter 11

**WARNING** : This chapter contains some swearing and torture scenes. Nothing extremely graphic, but still...Just thought I'd warn you just in case.

**I do not own Voltron: Legendary Defender!

* * *

Mari was _not_ _fine_. Even with her desperate thrashing and shouting, she was still too weak to stop Haggar and her minion from overpowering her. They stripped her of her helmet, tossing it into the corner like it was trash, and forced her onto the examination table in the center of the room. As soon as her back pressed against the metal, the entire bed hummed to life and glowing bands wrapped tightly around her wrists, ankles, and waist, firmly strapping her down. She pulled furiously at the restraints, but there was no give to them. She was immobile, stuck and at the mercy of Zarkon's henchwoman.

A dark chuckle sounded from behind her and Haggar came into view as she moved to stand next to her head. She leaned down to get a better look at Mari's face, grinning as her yellow eyes narrowed and raked over every inch of the human's pale skin.

"Take a picture. It'll last longer," Mari grunted out through gritted teeth. But Haggar seemed unfazed by her comment and straightened, that creepy smile never leaving her face.

"You act brave, but your emotions betray you," she noted calmly. "I can see the fear in your eyes, the way your quintessence signature is quivering…it's identical to _his_ from when I took his arm."

She paused, watching carefully for the human's reaction. Mari's anger flared at the thought of Shiro's prosthetic, the heavy chunk of metal that now clung to his shoulder and doubled as a weapon. It had proven to be very useful to him and the rest of the team on their missions thus far, but she knew that deep down he'd much rather have his real flesh and blood arm back. And not only had this horrible woman standing over her taken that from her brother, but she'd also inflicted a whole year's worth of pain and torture upon him, forever scarring his body and his psyche. Sure Shiro had come out of his ordeal stronger and more patient, but he never would be quite the same man that he was before the Kerberos Mission.

Mari's scowl deepened, but she kept her lips seals as she glared back at Haggar.

"Just as fiery as him as well, if not more so," she mused, and Mari wondered exactly what Haggar was seeing that made her so easy to read. Was it her quintessence signature? Whatever _that_ was.

"You look alike and you have the same energy," Haggar said. "Tell me, what is your relationship to him? To the Champion, Takashi Shirogane?"

Mari's heart suddenly skipped a beat and her eyes widened slightly as the witch drawled out the name, a reaction that didn't go unnoticed by Haggar.  
"That is his true name, isn't it?" she sneered. "You and your fellow paladins call him Shiro though, I believe."

Mari's mind was reeling. Shiro rarely went by his first name nowadays. Even when when he introduced himself to people, he hardly ever gave away his full name. Only a few people still called him Takashi: herself, their parents, and Adam. Not even Keith felt comfortable enough to call him by his first name. So how had Haggar figured it out? Mari couldn't imagine Shiro casually giving such personal information about himself to the enemy. Names held power and control, after all.

Inhaling sharply, she blinked back her surprise and glowered at Haggar. "How do you know that?" she inquired through clenched teeth.

A knowing glint flashed across the witch's eyes and Mari swallowed nervously, tempted to avert her gaze. Then without warning, Haggar grabbed her mildly trembling chin, pressing the Earthling's head against the metal table and keeping it in place. " _What are you to the Champion?_ " she hissed, her breath hot on Mari's skin. " _Who are you_?"

Mari winced as Haggar's sharp nails dug into the soft flesh of her cheeks and her frown deepened. She pressed her lips into a tight line and just glared at the High Priestess, unwilling to squeal. They stayed there in heavy silence for a few moments, Haggar's smile rapidly falling away with each passing tick that resulted in her receiving no answer. Finally, she released her grip on Mari's face with a soft huff before moving to stand at a panel near the end of the bed, her lackey quietly hovering behind her.

"The mind is a simple thing to access once the body is weakened," Haggar growled, pressing several buttons on the panel as she spoke. The examination table hummed and Mari stiffened as it gradually began to move into a vertical position. "If you refuse to cooperate and continue to answer my inquiries with silence, I promise you that I _will_ make you suffer. And once you are broken, your memories will be mine to see and your struggle will have been a pointless one. Now tell me: Who are you and how are you connected to Champion?"

The paralyzing claws of fear grasped at Mari's heart and for a split second she contemplated answering Haggar's questions. If she gave her identity away to the Galra Empire, let them know she was the sister of the the Black Paladin, the _leader_ of Voltron, she'd have a target over her head. Shiro would never let her go anywhere again. He'd lock her up in the Castle, or worse, send her back home to Earth, and that was the absolute _last_ thing she wanted for herself.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself as best as she could, Mari looked Haggar dead in the eye and said lowly, "Take your best shot, bitch."

The way that Haggar's face scrunched up in anger made Mari want to laugh, but her joy was short lived as the witch reached for the controls. She slid her sharp fingers up on the panel screen and the metal table emitted a high whine as electrical currents were channeled directly into the human's body. Mari inhaled sharply as the energy jolted through her, her entire body tensing and every fiber of her being feeling like it was being squeezed and set on fire. It only lasted a few seconds, but the shock was enough to steal her breath away and she sagged forward in pain, gasping raggedly as she struggled to suck in more oxygen.

In front of her, Haggar still looked displeased. "I will ask you again. Refuse to answer, and you will receive the same treatment as before," she said and Mari weakly lifted her head to gnash her teeth at the witch. "Who are you and how are you connected to Champion?"

Taking a moment to lick her dry lips, Mari sneered at her and uttered gruffly, " _Fuck. You._ "

The torture device was activated again and Mari screwed her eyes shut as another bolt coursed through her body. Her muscles contracted again and her breath was stolen away as more scorching stabs of pain racked her body. Her back arched off the metal slab and she felt like something inside of her would snap at any moment.

Finally, the currents were shut off again and she groaned and slumped forward again to catch her breath. Her skin was on fire and her muscles felt tingly and numb. Her tongue and throat were already so dry, and she winced as her head throbbed dully.

"There is no need for you to endure such pain." Haggar's minion had spoken this time, his voice deadpan. "Simply answer our questions and this torment will end."

"No…quiznaking…way," Mari spat out indignantly in between pants, and Haggar tsked as her fingers lighted on the control panel screens again.

A strangled sob ripped out of Mari as more electricity was sent through her, a stronger voltage that seemed to last for far longer than the previous two rounds. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think. All she knew was that her whole body already ached so much and that her muscles were convulsing in an unnatural way. She drooped forward once it stopped, her chest heaving and her throat and stomach burning as if she were going to vomit.

A soft snicker hissed through Haggar's lips as her manic grin returned to twist her facial features. "Not so cheeky now, are you?" she mused triumphantly. When Mari didn't answer, she continued, "This is your last chance to answer willfully. Who are you and how are you connected to Champion?"

Mari could barely lift her head up to look at Haggar, but her anger fueled her to huff out with hostility dripping from in her voice, "I'm not…telling you… _anything,_ dammit!"

As soon as the words left her mouth, an unyielding amount of electricity tore through her, shaking her to her very core. She couldn't hold back her screams as white hot stabs of pain fried every cell in her body, and her vision started to go black around the edges as the scent of burnt hair and flesh began to filter into the air.

Haggar delivered a lighting round of shocks for what seemed like forever. She didn't even ask questions when she silenced the machine to give Mari a few ticks to breathe and even throw up once. She just kept turning the voltage on and off, on, off, on, off, until Mari's voice gave out and she had gone completely limp. She was so quiet now, so pale and clammy, and just so, so still.

Shutting off the examination bed's electric feature, Haggar reverted it back to its original horizontal positioning and moved to the side of the table. She leaned over her victim with a sickening smile plastered to her face as she analyzed the human's condition: Mari was still breathing weakly and her quintessence levels had been diminished, but not enough to kill her. Most of her mental defenses had been lowered now that she was in an unconscious state, and Haggar grinned to herself in satisfaction.

"Now, who are you really?" she murmured as she placed her hands on Mari's head, her fingertips glowing as they rested against the temple on each side. Haggar shut her eyes in concentration as she delved into the human's mind, pushing back against the last remnants of mental resistance and searching for a smidge of a useful memory.

Very slowly, blurred and muted images began to surface, and Haggar frowned in dismay at their distorted state. She doubled her effort, willing the memories to come into full view for her to see. Finally, something came through, an older recollection featuring a much, much younger Champion in a primitive Earthling abode.

" _Look, I made this for school a few years ago. It's our family tree_ ," he was speaking to an even younger girl beside him—the girl she was interrogating, Haggar realized. He pointed to the photographs and names covering the large sheet of paper, explaining as he went, " _These are our obaasan and ojiisan._ "

" _Obaasan and ojjisan_ ," the little girl repeated and nodded in understanding, and Champion smiled.

" _Uh huh. There's mom and dad and then there's us, Takashi and Mariko._ "

Siblings. Champion, her greatest weapon and most successful experiment yet, had a _sibling_! His flesh and blood kin was in her lab right now, and she was all hers to play with.

Stifling her excitement, Haggar pulled out of the older memory and peered through the darkness for a new one. Maybe something involving the other paladins perhaps? Anything revealing their potential weaknesses would prove most useful to her and Emperor Zarkon. She pushed harder, trying to dig deeper into the Earthling's psyche, but it was like wading through molasses. And then suddenly, without any warning, all of Mari's mental defenses shot up again, blocking Haggar and keeping her from continuing any further.

Reopening her eyes, Haggar backed away from Mari as she startled awake, groaning and breathing heavily as her glazed eyes pried open. She scanned the room, slowly processing her surroundings. When her gaze landed on Haggar, her eyes widened in panic and the light returned to them as her lips began to tremble ever so slightly and tears pricked the corners of her eyes.

Even though she had blacked out, Mari had felt the sorceress probing her thoughts, knocking down her walls and forcefully starting to breach her memories. And she hadn't been able to do a damn thing to stop her from doing it other than forcing herself to start awake. Dread filled her as she took in the weirdly pleased smile now on Haggar's face, and she knew the witch had managed to find something of great interest.

"Mariko Shirogane," Haggar drawled in amusement, stepping closer to her again. "You're Champion's kin. His precious little sister."

Mari swallowed and parted her chapped lips to refute, but her throat was too dry, too raw from screaming for her to muster up a denial without whimpering in pain. Her entire body felt numb and ached badly, and the smell of singed hair and skin was making her empty stomach do flips.

"I should've known," Haggar laughed softly to herself, and Mari flinched as the woman dragged a gentle hand down her cheek. "I was able to see right into you…You resemble him greatly, the same sparklingly fierce eyes, the same quintessence, the same fighting spirit, even the same irritatingly stubborn and protective attitude. You, however, have a short temper that masks your insecurities, fear, and envy. You very much lack the qualities of a leader, unlike your beloved older brother."

 _I already quiznaking know that!_ Mari wanted to shout and strangle Haggar's wrinkled neck. But she kept quiet and stared furiously up at the ceiling, blinking back her tears and leaning away from Haggar's touch as much as she could.

"You are not a paladin and yet you stay with them and the princess on their ship. What are you other than a living target to their enemies? You are essentially useless to the Paladins of Voltron, a mere hindrance to them."

"I'm not," Mari whispered through gritted teeth. "I may not be a paladin or as strong or smart or capable as them, but that doesn't mean I'm useless."

"Say whatever you'd like, but that doesn't change what you really are to them," Haggar hummed. "You are _dead weight_. I will be doing them a favor by keeping you. You will be my lovely replacement for the original Champion. It wouldn't hurt for me to have another puppet stored for later. You will finally be useful, but unfortunately not to your cause."

"I'm not your damn plaything," Mari growled, her neck burning as she spoke. Her head was killing her and her skin was starting to feel itchy and hot under Haggar's gaze. She felt sick just looking at her and she wanted to hurl again, the stinging sensation of bile rising in the back of her throat.

Haggar sniggered and carded one hand through Mari's bangs, making her shiver in discomfort. "You are now, Champion's Kin," she crooned. "Your brother nor anyone else will ever find you. No one will rescue you. When all the Voltron Lions are in our possession, you will be _mine_."

Out of the corner of her eye, Mari watched as Haggar moved to one of the carts next to the metal table. Her fingers sifted through the multiple vials of liquid sitting on the top tray before she plucked up one that held a lava-orange substance. She nodded to her assistant still standing behind the control panel at the foot of the bed and he obediently flipped the switch to turn the table and Mari vertical once more. Meanwhile, Haggar placed the fire-colored liquid into a syringe and faced the Earthling again.

"But until then, let's see what other knowledge you have tucked away in that obstinate mind of yours," she said, beaming devilishly as she brought the needle up to Mari's neck. "Now that I know who you are, I am quite eager to learn more about you and the rest of the Paladins of Voltron."

* * *

In a chapter of one of my other stories, _Takashi to Mariko_ , Shiro makes a family tree poster thingy for school and shows it to baby Mari. The scene Haggar found in Mari's memories is when she's older and Shiro is showing it to her again.

** **Please feel free to leave a comment/review down below! They are much appreciated & encourage me to keep writing this fic :D**

 ****Feel free to check out my tumblr too, which is pufftheninja.**


	12. Chapter 12

**WARNING** : This chapter contains some swearing and torture scenes. Nothing extremely graphic, but still...Just thought I'd warn you just in case.

**I do not own Voltron: Legendary Defender!

* * *

Mari was being burned from the inside out. Every inch of her skin felt like it had been set on fire and her insides were melting as if she had swallowed a thousand ghost peppers doused in gasoline. Her pale skin was flushed an angry red and buckets of sweat soaked her as she wheezed and panted, tears streaming endlessly down her feverish cheeks. What the _hell_ had Haggar injected her with?

"The effects of the poison in your body will only get worse. Your body overheats, you quickly become dehydrated, and all of your internal systems slowly begin to shut down as they burn away. With the dosage I gave you, it will be a rather drawn out and incredibly agonizing death," Haggar explained cooly, holding the half empty syringe of liquid fire in front of Mari's face and lazily swirling the remnants of the deadly orange substance around in the container. "You will surely die in the next varga or so, something I'd rather not happen to you, my dear Champion's Kin. But if you answer my next questions, I will gladly give you the antidote and make all your suffering go away."

Mari's chest heaved and her lungs protested with each inhale she took. Her ears were ringing so badly and a skull-splitting headache was assaulting her. She almost hadn't heard what Haggar had said, she was so distraught with pain.

Haggar didn't seem to care though as she proceeded with her next round of inquires. "Tell me about the other paladins," she demanded, moving back to the cart of poison vials and picking up one that contained a translucent, blue-colored liquid. She placed it in another syringe but refrained from injecting the human with the fluid, simply holding the antidote at the ready. "What are their names? Their weapons of choice, perhaps? What are their strengths and weakness?"

Mari screamed as the white hot stabs of pain running throughout her body worsened with every passing tick. She screwed her eyes shut, sobbing miserably as her eyeballs stung from tears and the ever worsening effects of the poison. She was in so much agony, so much torment, she couldn't think straight.

She just had to answer the witch's damn questions right? The names of the paladins, their weapons and abilities…Well, Shiro was good at fighting with his Galra arm and strategizing, Keith was good with a sword, and Lance was— _No, no, stop!_ She couldn't give in, she couldn't give in. She had to fight through the pain, dammit! She couldn't give any more information away to Haggar.

A slur of incoherent words escaped from her lips and she shook her head furiously, the sudden movement making a howl tear from her throat. Haggar frowned in dismay and set the antidote back down on the tray before taking a threatening step closer to the human.

"What allies have you made thus far? Are all the paladins Earthlings?" she growled. When Mari simply retched up bile onto the floor in response, Haggar tsked in disgust. "At this rate, you'll succumb to unconsciousness any moment now. Humans are so weak," she murmured to herself. "Nevertheless, your mind will be open to me once more. You already know what it feels like to have your memories intruded upon. So invasive, so uncomfortable…I am sure you would rather avoid such an experience again. Give me the answers I desire and I will give you this in return."

She picked up the syringe full of antidote and showed it to the human, but it was all just a blur to Mari, a simple blue smudge. Her vision was getting hazy already and she could feel herself beginning to slip away as flames enveloped her body, scorching her relentlessly and making her surroundings start to dissolve into blackness.

 _No, I can't pass out now_ , Mari thought faintly to herself, but it did nothing to stop her vision from tunneling. Staying awake hurt so, _so_ much and fighting through the effects of the poison was absolutely exhausting. But she couldn't afford to give into the reprieve of unconsciousness—she had to keep Voltron's secrets safe from the Galra Empire. And if that meant her dying…then so be it. At least that way her memories would be disappearing with her and they'd be forever out of Haggar's reach.

Her eyes slipped closed and the unending darkness began to swallow her, numbing the feeling of broiling blades skewering every cell in her body. She felt herself slump forward and fear shot through her as she imagined Haggar reaching out to invade her unguarded mind again, searching for the answers she sought. Mari's entire being alighted with pain as she shook herself awake, and a shriek was wrenched from her throat as black spots danced across her vision.

Haggar huffed in mild annoyance and frowned at the human. "You cannot hold out forever," she hissed. "No matter how strong your will is, you _will_ give in eventually."

Before she could continue, the doors to the lab suddenly opened and another one of Haggar's minions stepped inside. The head sorceress turned to him with an irritated scowl.

"What is it?" she growled impatiently, but the newcomer was unfazed by her hostility.

"Emperor Zarkon requests your presence at the Komar," he announced solemnly. "…It is time."

Haggar's brow furrowed deeper and she pursed her lips together, but she didn't argue. Without a word, she plunged the syringe into Mari neck, ignoring the resulting startled yelp as she emptied the antidote into the Earthling's bloodstream. Instantly, the irritated red of her skin began to die down to a palish pink and her breathing became less labored as the poison that afflicted her body was quickly neutralized.

Mari gasped as the cure shocked her stiff, a frigid feeling enveloping her senses. It was like Haggar had injected her with ice or as if she were being buried in snow. She shivered in relief as the blue solution coursed through her, dousing the flames in her veins and pleasantly numbing her blazing muscles and skin.

"Clean up here, Macidus, and report to the Komar. Upon our return, we will continue the interrogation of Champion's Kin," she vaguely heard Haggar instruct, and she weakly lifted her head to see the witch heading out the door with one of the cloaked lackeys. Then instructing a pair of sentries she barked, "Guard this room. Make sure our prisoner does not escape."

As soon as she disappeared out of sight, Mari let out a shaky breath that came out more as a guttural sob. The effects of the antidote were already fading away, leaving her with a pounding headache and throbbing limbs that ached in protest whenever she moved. Her wrists, ankles, and waist burned from the restraints gouging into her, and her chest felt like an elephant had sat on it. Her stomach was sickeningly empty, yet she felt like she had just swallowed a bunch of lighter fluid. Bile stung the back of her worn out throat as she glanced down at the floor at the half-digested food goo mess she had expelled from her body not too long ago. Her mouth was so painfully dry and her tongue felt like sandpaper as she uselessly licked her chapped lips.

She was silent though as she watched Haggar's servant—Macidus, she had called him—move swiftly about the lab, disposing of syringes, returning vials to their proper shelves or places on trays, and even wiping up the vomit, drool, and sweat on the floor beneath Mari's restrained feet. When he had finished his task, he paused in front of her, his mask tilted upward her as he quietly stared at her.

Mari squirmed uncomfortably under his gaze and she swallowed thickly as she glared back at the design on his headgear. "…What?" she finally croaked, her voice thin and broken. She cleared her throat, ignoring the irritation it caused. " _What_?" she repeated, her snarl less raspy this time. "Aren't you supposed to meet that bitch at this Komar or something?"

Without warning, Macidus closed the distance between them and grabbed her face, his gnarled hand digging into her flushed cheeks and his palm pressing against her mouth to silence her. Muffled swears escaped her and she tried jerking out of his grasp, but his hold was firm. It tightened ever so slightly and he pushed her lips against her clenched teeth.

"Even after the torment we've put you through thus far, you still are full of defiance," he whispered, bringing his obscured face closer to hers. "Your kind is so stubborn despite their immense weakness. So susceptible to injury and illness…Even the Champion himself was once burdened by a disease that would have eventually killed him if the High Priestess had not cured him."

He chortled darkly as surprise flashed across Mari's eyes, the sound eerie and echoey. "You should be grateful really. She's the reason your dear brother has been able to live this long," he continued. His free hand trailed along her bicep before sneaking down to her torso, an action that made her squeal and spasm in revulsion. His touch settled on her waist and he laughed again at the absolute hatred that now filled her gaze.

"I was hesitant at first, but I'm glad I ultimately decided to bring you here. I'm excited to see the results of Haggar's experiments on you. Will they be the same as Champion's, I wonder? Maybe she'll replace one of your limbs," he mused softly, his hand inching down towards her inner thigh. "It would be such a pity though. Humans have such soft and curious bodies…and yours seems to be in peak condition."

Disgusting asshole.

Parting her lips as much as she could, Mari furiously sunk her teeth into the thin flesh of his hand. Macidus shrieked in pain and instantly reeled back, ripping his bleeding hand out of her mouth.

"How dare you, you damned little beast!" he cursed, cradling his injured hand to his chest as the blood flowing out sluggishly came to a stop and the wound began to close up.

Mari spit out the metallic taste of his blood and flesh and glared daggers at him, stifling the urge to throw up again. "Screw you," she ground out right as he struck her with a glowing hand.

She yelled as her head snapped back into the metal bed, her vision turning white for a split second. The entire left side of her face was searing and throbbing heavily, and she could feel the hot trickle of blood run down her cheek and down her neck.

"Suffer here in silence, you insolent brat," Macidus spat angrily. "Voltron will be no more soon, and after that, we will have our way with you. We will make sure that fire in your eyes is snuffed out for good."

Then he disappeared into thin air, leaving only black smoke in his wake and allowing Mari to finally pass out in peace.

* * *

Thirsty…She was so thirsty.

Mari groggily opened her eyes, a soft whine escaping her parched lips as her senses slowly sharpened. She wasn't sure how long she had been out (minutes? hours?) but every part of her was screaming in agony. She was so tired and everything, _everything_ hurt, like she was constantly being run over by a steam roller. And on top of that, she was so damn thirsty! If Haggar's torture didn't kill her, then dehydration and lack of food would surely do her in at some point.

Thinking of the witch, Mari blearily glimpsed around the room for any sign of her, but the lab was empty. Haggar and Macidus had yet to return from…from whatever evil deed they were doing for their stupid emperor. But they would be back, and all she could do was wait for the inevitable pain they would inflict upon her.

Sighing, she let her head go limp and rested her chin against her chest, staring hard at the floor below her and trying not to think about her nagging thirst or her impending doom. She wondered vaguely how Allura was doing. The princess was strong, she was no doubt okay in her cell…hopefully. Her mind wandered to the paladins and Coran. How much time had passed since she and Allura were captured? Were they still trying to formulate a rescue plan? Or…were they really just abandoning their comrades?

 _They aren't_ , Mari told herself. _They won't. They would never._

Coran would give his life to rescue Allura. And Lance, Hunk, Pidge, Keith, and Shiro were all the princess's paladins, her knights in shining white Altean armor. Allura was worth saving. And Mari? She definitely wasn't as valuable or important as the princess, but her life still mattered. Takashi would save her. He loved her, she knew he did. He had told her himself. He'd never just leave her with Haggar, would he?

 _They're coming, right?_ _He won't leave me behind again._

She didn't know when the tears had started flowing, but they were rolling uncontrollably down her face now, stinging the glowing scratch wound that marked her left cheek. They plopped to the floor next to the small splatters of dried blood and Mari sniffled, biting her lip and trying to stop her silent crying. She couldn't afford the loss of anymore water from her system.

Suddenly, the sound of the door mechanisms whirling made her stiffen and her adrenaline spiked. She swallowed back a sob as it opened, her eyes already narrowing as she fully expected Haggar and/or Macidus to enter. But to her surprise, it was a flesh and blood Galran officer that stepped into the room, pouches of water and a small tube of pills gripped in his hands. His yellow eyes widened as they fell on her beaten and bloodied form, but he quickly regained his composure as he approached her, the door sliding shut soundlessly behind him.

Mari scowled at him for a moment, taking him in. His jaw was chiseled with a tuff of a developing goatee on his chin. His ears were very furry, almost fluffy looking, and pointed upward, blending in with the rest of the purple hair on his head. And although his solid yellow eyes were a bit harder to read without irises or pupils, she could still see the pity flooding them as he looked at her. Maybe he was a nice Galra? One that would set her free and help her and Allura escape before Voltron arrived (if it ever did).

"There are rumors going around that you are the Black Paladin's kin," he finally spoke. He set the water pouches on an empty space on one of the trays next to the bed and poked a straw through one of them.

"Word must travel fast here in hell," Mari noted dryly and he grimaced.

"Here. Drink," he said, his tone unexpectedly gentle as he held the water pouch up to her mouth. "We can't have you dying on us."

Mari pressed her lips together firmly and turned away from the straw in front of her despite her body screaming for her mouth to latch onto it and suck all the moisture down. "Like you actually care," she spat coldly. "You just want to keep me alive for Haggar's twisted sake."

The Galran frowned but he kept his hand steady, refusing to pull the water away. "Don't be foolish," he chided. "You are already dehydrated. Drink before you enter a critical state."

When Mari still made no move to do as he said, he sighed. "I promise it is just water. I do not want you to die in vain. Stay alive for your team. Stay alive for _yourself_. Please. _Drink_."

Mari hesitated for a moment, glancing between the water pouch and the Galran offering it to her. The look in his eyes seemed earnest enough…Caving, she put her lips against the straw and began to suck up the water greedily. The cool and refreshing liquid soothed her tender throat, and she stifled a moan of relief as she gulped it down. She emptied the pouch in seconds, and the Galran wasted no time jabbing a straw into a second one and holding it up for her to sip. Too focused on devouring the heavenly life-giving liquid, she barely even noticed when he gingerly placed a mauve-colored, clawed hand against her damp forehead.

"You're running a fever," he murmured, removing his hand and popping the top off the bottle he had brought. He set the water pouch down once Mari had finished it and shook two pills from the container into the palm of his hand. "These will help with the pain and the fever," he explained, bringing them up to her mouth along with a third pouch.

Hesitating slightly, she swallowed the medicine without complaint, the hard capsules feeling strange as they made their way down her throat. The Galran let her finish the rest of her water in silence, his eyes sad and never leaving her face until the last of the pouches had been drained. She watched him as he gathered up the shriveled remnants of the water containers and dumped them in a hidden hatch in the wall. He returned to the side of the examination bed and began to screw the cap back on the pill bottle when Mari finally spoke.

"If you don't want me to die, then why don't you help me escape?" she asked, her voice quiet. "Me and Allura both."

The Galran pocketed the medicine and looked at her with a rigid expression. "I cannot risk it," he admitted, and before she could ask what he meant he continued, "Besides, Voltron is here now. The paladins are coming for you and the princess as we speak."

"What?"

Voltron was _here_? Right now? How long had it been here? This new revelation was making her thoughts swirl and hope blossomed inside her chest, making her heart flutter. Things were going to be okay. She and Allura and everyone else would make it out of this alive…If all went well and according to the paladins' plan, that is.

The corners of the Galran's mouth tugged up into a small smile at her elated expression, but it quickly faded as determination steeled his features. He turned away from her to leave, pausing only when Mari called out to him.

"Wait! I…I want to thank you," she muttered, her cheeks warm with an embarrassment she couldn't hide. Hopefully he would mistake her blush for her fever. It just felt so weird thanking someone who was supposed to be her enemy.

The Galran cast her another tired smile over his shoulder and nodded curtly. He paused for a moment, contemplating on what to say before he finally said in a hushed and serious tone, "Allies of Voltron still exist within the empire, even amongst the Galra. Never forget that."

And with that, he exited the lab, leaving Mari alone again to mull over what he had just shared with her.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Yay! Hooray for Thace! (That Galra who helped her was him by the way lol). So I think I'm gonna try including shout-outs from here on out with my stories, so if you'd like to be acknowledged in the next chapter, leave a comment down below! :D

** **Please feel free to leave a comment/review down below! They are much appreciated & encourage me to keep writing this fic :D**

 ****Feel free to check out my tumblr too, which is pufftheninja.**


	13. Chapter 13

****Author's note** : As promised, shoutout to **fantasy.92, Ishval,** and **megane-chan** for leaving reviews last chapter! Thank you so, so much for sharing your opinions and feedback! :D

 **megane-chan:** Ahh I'm glad you like it so much! You don't know how happy I am knowing that there are people who enjoy reading my stuff :) Thace is my favorite Blade besides Krolia, so I just _had_ to incorporate him in here somehow lol.

 ****I do not own Voltron: Legendary Defender!**

* * *

There were good Galra in the empire? It almost seemed impossible considering Zarkon had been ruling for ten thousand years without facing a single uprising from within (that Team Voltron knew of). Still, Mari couldn't ignore how that Galran had helped her. No one seemed to have ordered him to do so; he had chosen to help her of his own volition, purely out of the kindness of his heart. She wished she had gotten his name.

Sighing, she stared down at the floor again, cringing when she saw the tiny red splatters speckling the metal tiles. The left side of her face was matted with drying blood, the wound Macidus had gifted her having stopped bleeding a while ago. Thankfully it wasn't stinging as badly as before now that the painkillers had kicked in and were making her whole body feel mildly numb and relaxed. But the meds wouldn't last forever, and she had a nagging feeling that Haggar would be returning at any minute. How long had if been since the crone had left? An hour? She had no sense of time here. Minutes felt like hours when one was being tortured.

There was a sudden scuffling noise beyond the door to the lab and Mari's head snapped up, her heart leaping into her throat. The witch was finally back.

Her heart rate spiked and whatever little adrenaline she had left flooded her system as her fear skyrocketed. It was too soon. She wasn't ready for this next round of torment! Not when she was still recovering, not when Voltron was so close to getting her!

Heavy thuds sounded from behind the door, followed by the soft whirling of mechanisms as it slid open. Mari mustered up a glare and a growl rumbled in the back of her throat as she fully expected Haggar or Macidus or any one of her lackeys to enter. But her hostile expression instantly melted away and her jaw fell open in surprise as Shiro stepped into the room, his prosthetic glowing dimly.

His face was pale underneath his helmet visor and his eyes widened in horror as they scanned the lab. He was shocked stiff as he took everything in, the vile memories from the time he spent as a prisoner rushing back to him all at once. The unwanted touches, the screeching of saw blades, the blood, the pain, the screams of pure agony. Shiro looked sick, like he was going to pass out or have a panic attack at any moment.

"Takashi!" Mari exclaimed. Her voice was trembling and coarse, but it was enough to jolt him out of the encroaching nightmares. He blinked twice, his gaze falling on her and his face twisting in mortification. She imagined she must've looked like such a mess.

"Mariko…" Shiro whispered, taking an unsteady step towards her. "…Oh my god! _Mari!_ "

He sprinted forward, reaching for the panel that controlled the examination bed, only for his hands to hesitate over the screens and buttons in confusion. After a short moment, he ultimately decided he couldn't (nor had the time to) decipher how to operate the table and he activated his arm, resorting to brute force as he easily punched a hole through the display. The restraints keeping Mari in place fizzled and faded out of existence, letting her fall limply to the floor.

Shiro was kneeling beside her in less than a second, gently cradling her in his arms and holding her close to his chest. Mari could feel him quivering slightly, and tears pricked in the corners of her eyes as she clung to him.

" _Gomen_ , _gomen_ ," he murmured, crying softly as he slowly rocked her back and forth. "I'm so sorry, Mariko. I'm sorry it took us so long."

Mari shook her head as the tears leaked out of her eyes. "It's okay," she croaked in between her sniffles. She was so happy that he was here. She was finally safe. "It's okay now, really."

Shiro took a shaky breath and pulled away just enough to get a good look at her face, his hold on her not loosening in the slightest. "God…What did she do to you?" he muttered, his tone dripping with anger and disbelief while his dark-gray eyes shone with guilt. Mari hadn't seen him this upset in a long, long while, not since Adam had ended things between them. "She—she hurt you so much…I'm so, so sorry."

"It's not your fault," she said weakly, and she tried her best to grin reassuringly at him. "Just throw me in a healing pod and I'll be all better."

A huff of a laugh escaped Shiro's lips and he granted her a feeble smile, happy to see that she still had some fire left in her. "Come on, let's get you out of here."

He picked up her helmet from the corner of the room where it had been tossed and placed it on her head as carefully as possible. Mari winced as it pressed against the fresh bruises and the glowing scratches from Macidus, but said nothing as he put it on.

Once her helmet was secured, Shiro easily maneuvered her so that she could cling onto his back like a koala, and she stifled a groan of pain as she pressed against the back of his chest plate. He lifted her legs up off the floor at her knees and she solemnly wrapped her arms around his neck, all the while trying not to look at her wrists where her space suit had been burned and _fused_ to the red and blistering flesh underneath. Her stomach churned at the realization that her waist and ankles were most likely in a similar state, and she quickly shook the thought from her head before she could dry heave.

Carrying her piggyback, Shiro hurried out of the room and nimbly stepped over the destroyed bodies of the two sentries that had been guarding the lab. Mari rested her cheek against his back; she was so content and tired despite the fact that they weren't in the clear yet. She was just so glad to be with him again, and the steady pace he was moving at was starting to lull her to sleep.

"How'd you even find me?" she asked, opting to talk in order to keep herself awake and alert.

"Coran tracked your biorhythm in the ship," Shiro explained, panting slightly as he ran.

"Like my quintessence pattern?" she mumbled drowsily.

"Yeah…Something like that, I guess."

"What about Allura?" she inquired, perking up a bit in concern for the princess. "Is she okay?"

"The others know her location. They'll get her, don't worry," he promised. "We won't leave without her."

"Thank God." She breathed out a sigh of relief as she slumped against his back again. Hopefully the others would find Allura alive and well in her prison cell and not in a similar state that she was in.

 _She is not your toy! I swear, if you hurt her, I'll—_

Mari wondered what the princess's reaction would be when she saw her. Furious? Upset? Probably both. But at least the damage inflicted upon her body was a symbol of her loyalty. She hadn't given Haggar the satisfaction of cracking under the torture and she'd kept all of Voltron's secrets safe. The only thing she had given away was her identity. Haggar, along with countless other Galra, knew who she was and how she was connected to Voltron and the paladins.

She had failed in keeping herself safe. She would be a target for their enemies from here on out. She didn't want to be a hinderance to the team and she promised herself that she wouldn't let that happen. Maybe she could train more with her staff and practice using the Castle's attack drones. Or maybe Coran could teach her how to fly the Altean pods or how to help with the castle-ship's maintenance. _Anything_ to let her stay with them and prove herself useful.

But Shiro was in charge, and after this little fiasco, she wouldn't be surprised if he sent her straight home. Mari would rather him keep her locked up in the Castle if that meant she could stay up here with everyone as they traveled throughout the universe. She wanted to stay with the team more than anything, to continue to fight alongside them and get to know them. She wanted to continue eating Hunk's weird alien food concoctions and to make those egg rolls with him eventually. She wanted to discuss video games with Pidge and learn more about the sassy girl that was Katie Holt. She wanted to hear the rest of Lance's corny jokes and pick up lines (even if they were irritating and ineffective) and to test his sharpshooter skills on the training deck. She wanted to keep teasing and sparring with Keith, to understand why Shiro had always talked so highly of him. She wanted to listen to Coran's stories about Altea and Voltron and to laugh and cringe at his jovial outbursts. She wanted to spend more time with Allura, to have another girl's night with her and talk about their memories of home. And more than anything, she wanted to stay with the brother she had finally reconnected with after years of having an indistinguishable rift forming between them. She didn't want to lose him again—not to the Galra, not to _anyone_ —and if she went home now, she felt like she would never see him again.

A lump formed in her throat and Mari swallowed thickly as more tears stung her eyes. She inhaled deeply, trying to force back her sobs, and she buried her face in Shiro's shoulder to stifle her sniffles.

"I know it hurts, but just hang in there for a little while longer," he encouraged softly, misinterpreting the cause of her whimpers. He glanced back at her with worry and guilt in his gaze. "We're almost to the Black Lion. Then we'll high-tail it out of here."

Mari sighed shakily and grimaced. "That's not it," she choked up, screwing her eyes shut and wiping a few of her tears away. "I-I mean, yes it hurts b-but…H-Haggar, she—she found out _who I am_ , how I'm connected to you and the rest of the team. S-She forced her way into my mind and I-I tried my best to keep stuff from her b-but…But! She wasn't able to get any information on Voltron, I swear!"

Shiro's steps faltered and his hold on her tightened, but he didn't say anything. He just kept moving forward quickly, prompting her to continue.

"I-I'm really sorry, Takashi," she whispered, too afraid and ashamed to bring herself to look at him. "I know I messed up, b-but please don't send me home. I don't have to go on any more missions, I'll stay on the Castle. Just _please_ …I want to stay with you and the others. Don't leave me alone again."

To her bewilderment, Shiro shook his head straightaway. "Don't apologize, Mari," he hushed, his tone scolding but kind. "I know just how strong Haggar's magic is. What happened is not your fault. And so what if the Galra know your name and your relationship to me? I'd never send you back home just because of that."

"What if I become a target though?" she protested, and she frowned as he chuckled. "I don't want to bring the team down like that."

"You'll be safe as long as you stay with us," he assured her, casting her a slight smile as they rounded a corner and entered a hangar holding several Galran fighters. "And if someone _does_ go after you, then I'll just have to beat the hell out of them, now won't I? I'll protect you no matter what, Mariko. I promise I won't send you home either, not until the universe is saved and the rest of us are ready to go back to Earth with you. I'm not leaving you alone agai—!"

The swift and unexpected sound of the massive metal doors slamming shut behind them cut Shiro off and he skidded to a halt in the middle of the hangar. He looked back at the sealed entryway, suspicion furrowing his brow and setting his jaw. The hair on the back of Mari's neck stood on end underneath her suit, and a feeling of dread washed over her as the room seemed to drop several degrees in temperature.

"So, Champion returns," an all too familiar voice drawled, and both Shiroganes stiffened before whipping their heads around to see Haggar waiting for them on the other end of the hangar. Her lips curled upwards into a malevolent smirk as her eyes took in the sight of the siblings and she chuckled darkly. "And it seems he's managed to find the precious thing we stole from him."

"You…" Shiro growled, not even daring to speak her name. Mari could feel him trembling beneath her touch and she couldn't blame him for feeling afraid. This was the woman that had mentally, emotionally, and physically scarred him after all. She was shaking herself, her whole body aching at the memory of the poison and the electrocution. She held onto Shiro tighter, reflexively moving to hide herself from Haggar's gaze and arousing another throaty snigger from the sorceress.

"Such a scared pup now," she mused in delight. "Tell me, Champion, do you like what I've done with her? She was so stubborn at first, she wouldn't tell me a single thing. A shame I had to leave her so early, I believe I was on the verge of breaking her. It was so fun playing with her…I'm looking forward to continuing our interrogation."

"You're not continuing _anything_ with her," Shiro snarled, taking a step back away from the witch. "I won't let you touch her _ever again_."

Haggar smirked and her eyes gleamed with a manic light. "Then I'll just have to get rid of you first then."

She disappeared in a puff of black mist and Shiro looked around frantically for any sign of her. Haggar's creepy laughter echoed off the walls of the hangar, building tension as she prolonged her reappearance and let Shiro's fear increase.

"I'm gonna set you down for a bit, okay?" he barely uttered, backing all the way up to the hangar entrance. He crouched down and gently deposited her, letting her limply slide off his back and lean against the metal doors trapping them inside. "Stay here. I'll take care of her."

Mari tried to smile at him, but she was too tired to even lift the corners of her mouth. "It's not like I have enough strength to go anywhere or anything," she remarked through a huff of bitter laughter, and Shiro responded by planting a kiss on the forehead of her helmet.

He turned back to face the rest of the room, his false arm humming to life and his eyes narrowing as he scanned the room for any sign of his opponent. Then like a flash of lightning, Haggar manifested a few feet in front of him, that condescending grin still plastered to her face. Shiro leapt forward and swiped at her with his glowing arm, only for it to connect with nothing but air as she disappeared. Not even a tick later, she showed up again, this time more to his left. Shiro charged again, reaching out to land a blow, but he stumbled forward as his hit was met with empty space. Her creepy chuckles filled the room as copies of her materialized and surrounded him, trapping him inside a circle of witches. He grunted in dismay as his eyes flicked over each of them, but was still unable to determine which one of them was the genuine article.

"I made you strong and this is how you repay me?" the Haggar closest to him spat furiously and Shiro whirled on her, fist raised. He tried punching her, but he was instantly blocked by a magic barrier that was powerful enough to send him flying across the room instead. He landed on his stomach and slid to a halt, groaning as he struggled to maneuver himself into a crawling position.

"You could have been our greatest weapon!" the witch hissed, her voice dripping with venom as she raised a hand towards him. A dark ball of magic energy swirled in her palm and it sizzled as it began to fire laser-like beams at the Black Paladin.

Shiro's eyes widened in fear and he dove out of the way just as the shot exploded behind him. He scrambled to regain his balance as he sprinted towards her, nimbly dodging her blasts and raising his fist again to attack as he closed the distance between them. But she vanished, and when she showed herself again, she was standing right in front of Mari.

"And now, this one will replace you," Haggar sneered, one energized hand already reaching out to grab her. "She will be my new champion."

An enraged shout tore from Shiro's throat and he pounced on the sorceress, his prosthetic searing with heat as he prepared to bring it down on Haggar. But at the last second, she turned on him and caught him by the throat, squeezing the air out of him and bringing his assault to an abrupt halt. He let out a choked gurgle, clawing desperately at the hand digging into his neck, but Haggar was unbelievably strong for someone of her age and stature. She lifted Shiro higher up in front of her, snickering to herself as her form suddenly shifted into a yellow-eyed, vicious version of Takashi Shirogane.

"I must destroy the original first though," Haggar-Shiro laughed to herself, and Shiro's eyes widened in fear. "Goodbye, Champion."

 _I have to do something!_ Mari screamed at herself, glancing in a panic around the hangar. There was nothing around that she could use as a weapon, but even if there was, she wasn't sure she'd be able to lift it let alone attack. Heck, she didn't think she could even stand. But if she didn't do something right now, Shiro would die. And she couldn't— _wouldn't_ let that happen, not when Haggar was right in front of her and there was still time to prevent Shiro from dying.

Removing her helmet and setting it down beside her, Mari placed her palms on the floor and leaned forward, biting back a cry as the pressure being applied sent rivulets of pain lacing up her arms and legs. Wincing, she inhaled sharply and dragged herself forward so that she was within reach of Haggar's leg. Grabbing the witch's left calf, which still looked disturbingly like Shiro's own appendage, Mari quickly sunk her teeth into it. Her eyes screwed shut in disgust as she felt her canines break the skin and cut into papery flesh.

Haggar shouted, but whether from pain or surprise or both, Mari wasn't sure. There was a loud thump as Shiro was dropped to the floor and she could hear him gasping for air. But before she could check to see if he was all right, a clawed hand dug into her scalp and yanked her by the hair. She screamed as Haggar roughly threw her off, sending the weakened human falling backwards onto the floor. Unable to catch herself in time, her head collided harshly with the floor, and her vision swirled before gradually turning black at the edges.

All of her energy felt like it had been drained instantaneously as she laid motionlessly on the ground. Her limbs felt like jelly and her stupid headache was back again. Her mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton and she could vaguely hear Shiro saying something, but she couldn't quite make it out.

Dammit…she really was so, so _tired_.

Unable to stay awake any longer, Mari let her weary eyes slip shut and she was dead to the world in seconds.

* * *

Gomen='Sorry' in Japanese

** **Please feel free to leave a comment/review down below! They are much appreciated & encourage me to keep writing this fic :D**

 ****Feel free to check out my tumblr too, which is pufftheninja.**


	14. Chapter 14

**Shoutout to **fantasy.92,** **megane-chan,** and **Ishval** for leaving reviews last chapter! Thank you so, so much for sharing your opinions and feedback! :D

 **megane-chan:** So much wonderfully heart-wrenching stuff happened last chapter lol. Mari'll be fine though, don't worry ;) Yaaass, Adam! I hope we get to learn a bit more about him in this last season. And thank you! :D

 ****I do not own Voltron: Legendary Defender!**

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Something big that smelled like cinnamon was holding Mari, enveloping her with warmth as she jostled up and down slightly from the hurried movement. She was faintly aware that someone had put her helmet back on her head, and she cracked open her eyes to see Hunk above her. His expression was anxious and fearful, and he was carrying her bridal-style down a corridor of Zarkon's HQ. Her head lolled to one side and she nearly cried out in relief as she noticed Allura moving swiftly in front of them. She was supporting a limping Shiro, her arm wrapped around his waist to help him stand.

How long had she been out? It couldn't have been for too long if they were still inside the Galran Central Command. But when had Hunk and Allura shown up? Where were Pidge, Lance, and Keith? And how had Shiro gotten so badly injured? And what had happened to Haggar? Mari's gaze weakly shifted back to Hunk and she parted her cracked lips to ask him, but only a whisper of a sob escaped her. At the sound, Hunk's gaze immediately flicked down to her, his chocolate brown eyes so wide and full of concern and kindness.

"Hey," he said, his smile unwavering despite the shaking of his voice. "You're awake."

Mari frowned at him and tried speaking again, but he instantly shushed her.

"Ah! No," he scolded. "No talking. Everyone's okay, we're almost to the Yellow Lion. We're getting out of here, I promise. All you need to do is rest for now, all right?"

They rounded another corner and Mari gaped upon seeing the entire Yellow Lion's head poking through the wall. Across from it were two dead sentries and a prison cell that had been blasted open. Well…that was certainly _one_ way to break a captive out.

Allura and Shiro hurried up the lion's entry ramp with Hunk trailing closely behind them. Inside the cockpit, the Yellow Paladin gingerly transferred Mari into Allura's waiting arms before sliding into the pilot's seat and pulling the lion out of and away from the facility. Allura held the human girl close to her, her Altean strength allowing her to cradle Mari with ease. Shiro was leaning heavily on the wall beside her, his face grim as he stared ahead.

"Hunk, drop me off at the Black Lion," he ordered, his tone tight with pain. "Then get back to the Castle and wait in your hangar on standby. Allura—"

"I will get Mari set up in a healing pod straight away," she finished for him, and he cast her a small yet grateful smile. The princess's gaze fell upon Mari and her brilliant eyes shone with tears as she soaked in the Earthling's injured and exhausted form. "Shiro told me what happened. You fought so bravely against that witch…You stayed so strong," she whispered. Guilt flashed across her features and her lower lip trembled angrily. "And while you were enduring that torment, I was just sitting in a cell, completely unharmed. I should've done more to stop them. If only I had…" Allura sighed and pinched her eyes shut, her lips pursed together in self-loathing. "I'm terribly sorry, Mari."

Mari swallowed thickly and scarcely shook her head. "Don't…Don't be," she managed, her voice much too soft and thin. "You…would've gotten hurt if you'd tried anything. Voltron's secrets are safe…all of us are getting out of here…and that's all that really matters, right?"

She tried grinning, but the corners of her lips twitched upwards only slightly. She was still so tired. Her limbs felt heavy and it was like cotton was muffling her senses. She could feel the effects of the painkillers wearing off as her head pounded and her insides felt like they were being stabbed repeatedly by tiny pins and needles. She wanted all these uncomfortable feelings to go away, to have them engulfed and nullified by the sweet release of unconsciousness. But Mari was afraid that if she fell asleep now, she'd never wake up again.

Allura smiled at her, although it never fully reached her eyes. The rest of the ride was spent in silence as Hunk evaded enemy fire and cut down attacking Galran fighters. The Yellow Lion landed on one of the lower sides of the Central Command, where the Black Lion was sprawled across the dark metal surface. A ways off, the Red Lion was in a losing battle against a single person, and Mari's skin crawled as she realized it was Zarkon.

"He's fighting against a Voltron lion all by _himself_!" Hunk squeaked fearfully. "No ships, no backup, no nothing! He's only using a—uh, is—is that what I think it is?"

"It's a bayard," Shiro realized grimly, his eyes widening as they zeroed in on the ever-changing weapon in the emperor's hand.

Allura's grip on Mari tightened and her body quivered as she stared rigidly at their enemy. "It's the Black Paladin's bayard," she admitted quietly. "Zarkon…was the original pilot of the Black Lion."

Hunk gasped dramatically and Shiro looked at the princess as if she had just slapped him across the face. " _What?_ "

Allura gritted her teeth and turned to Shiro with steel in her stare. "He was the first Black Paladin," she repeated, her tone steadier this time.

"Why didn't you tell us?" he demanded, his eyes narrowing in anger.

"It is ancient history now," the princess was quick to defend herself, her gaze never wavering as she frowned back at him. "Right now, you need to focus on getting down to your lion immediately. We cannot afford to risk staying here any longer, Shiro."

Shiro set his jaw, looking like he was ready to argue. He glanced at Hunk's fretful face and then to his sister, who simply stared back at him and blinked, her eyes flicking towards the cockpit's exit expectantly. Letting out a tired sigh, their leader nodded curtly and headed for the door, wincing as the movement strained his injuries.

Hunk kept Yellow standing protectively over the Black Lion, waiting patiently for Shiro to board and get his ship up into the air. When he disappeared into the lion's open maw and Black's eyes sparked to life, Yellow launched into the air as the head of Voltron took off towards the Red Lion and Zarkon.

"I'm getting Keith," Shiro explained, his voice crackling over their comms. "Head back to the Castle, Hunk."

"Don't have to tell me twice," Hunk confirmed, yelping as he narrowly dodged another laser blast from a fighter.

They zipped back to the Yellow Lion's hangar and Allura disembarked as soon as the lion's paws touched the floor. She full on sprinted as she hauled Mari to the medical wing, not even breaking a sweat as she did so. When they arrived, Allura carefully laid her down on a soft examination bed and removed her helmet just as Coran arrived.

"Oh, thank the ancients you two are all right!" he breathed out a loud sigh of relief as he approached Allura.

"I wouldn't exactly call this 'all right'," she muttered, gesturing to Mari unhappily as she fiddled with a tablet that had been attached to the foot of the bed.

"You both survived this ordeal, didn't you?" he pointed out optimistically, taking the tablet from her and inputting the correct commands. "And neither of you are on the brink of death, so I consider this all right, indeed."

He activated the scanners and a soft whine sounded from the bed, making Mari flinch and inhale sharply. Her muscles tensed and she squeezed her eyes shut, partially expecting an electric shock to rack her body. But after a few ticks of nothing happening, she relaxed and moaned quietly as she reopened her bleary eyes, taking in Coran and Allura's perturbed faces as they hovered over her.

"Internal and external burns, singed hair, moderate dehydration, bumps on the back of the head and a mild concussion, lacerations on her scalp and left cheek, bruises on the left cheek, and second degree burns around her wrists, ankles, and waist…where her suit has fused to her flesh," Coran observed grimly as he read the tablet's results of the scan. "And on top of all that, she has a fever as well."

Mari's stomach churned at the sound of the diagnosis and Allura's expression flared with fury. "Those quiznaking beasts!" she cursed, her hands curling into fists. "Those heartless monsters! I hate them so much!"

Coran's eyebrows furrowed in mutual understanding and he placed a calming hand on her shoulder. "I'll take care of her, Princess. You go up to the bridge and prepare to wormhole us out of here once all the paladins return," he said, his tone gentle but serious.

Allura looked at him with mournful eyes, thousands of years worth of sadness and anger swirling beneath them. Sighing, she nodded in agreement before turning on her heel and running out of the med bay.

The princess truly and whole-heartedly despised the Galra, and why wouldn't she considering their kind had slaughtered her family and the rest of her people before obliterating Altea. Even Mari had a reason to completely hate them: they had kidnapped her brother and tortured him, and then they had kidnapped _her_ and tortured her. The Galra destroyed countless of lives and inflicted so much agony upon the many beings of the universe.

But still…not all Galra were bad, right? Mari couldn't believe their entire species was evil, especially not after she'd encountered that kind Galran soldier back in Haggar's lab.

"All righty then," Coran said, turning back to her with a tender look in his eyes. "Let's get you cleaned up and put into a cryo-pod."

He adjusted the bed so that she was sitting up and he began to help her peel off her space suit. It was painful, the effort of shrugging off her attire making her whole body hurt, and she groaned and winced nonstop. Coran had to use a pair of scissors to cut off the suit around her wrists, legs, and waist, leaving bands of melted fabric around the areas where flesh had fused to skin. It was sickening looking at the red and blistered skin melding with the cloth, and Mari struggled not to gag.

"I know, it looks quite gruesome," Coran murmured, rubbing her back soothingly. "But there's no need to worry, it won't be permanent. The pods will break down the fabric and those burns will be healed. Ah, speaking of which, we'd best get you into a cryo-suit."

He pulled one out that was her size from a drawer in the wall, and he patiently helped her put it on. When he had finished fastening the back, he moved over to another shelf and plucked a small vial of pills off of it.

"Here, take these," he instructed, placing two pink tablets in her hand. "Unfortunately, the pods aren't the best at curing illnesses, so these will help the fever go down."

Mari popped them into her mouth obediently and they melted on her tongue. They tasted like weird mixture of bubblegum and garlic, but she was grateful for the medication nevertheless.

"Thank you, Coran," she said and he nodded, his eyes crinkling as he smiled warmly at her. He scooped her up in his arms and brought her over to the nearest healing pod, carefully placing her inside before moving to adjust the settings at the center control panel.

"In a couple vargas, you'll be right as that rain Lance said you had on Earth," he assured her, typing away on his screen. "It'll be like the Galra and Haggar never even laid a finger on you."

She didn't miss the way his eyes narrowed in dismay as he pronounced the names of their enemies, and she grimaced a bit. "Not…Not all Galra are bad, Coran," she said aloud, and he glanced up at her with a raised eyebrow as he waited for her to explain. She hesitated for a moment, before saying finally, "There was someone who helped me on Zarkon's ship, a Galra soldier. He couldn't free me, but he didn't want to hurt me…I don't think he was such a bad guy."

Coran hummed in thought and his expression softened, but he didn't look entirely convinced. "Well, you can tell us all about this friendly Galra you met once you've been healed," he decided, giving her a reassuring smile. "We'll see you soon, all right?"

Mari nodded and Coran activated her cryo-pod. The blue glass immediately materialized in front of her, sealing her inside, and a wave of relief washed over her. After suffering for who knows how many hours, she was finally safe. Allura was safe. Their team had never given up on them, and their odd family had been reunited. None of them were completely out of the woods yet—they still had yet to fully escape the realm of Zarkon's Central Command ship, after all. But Mari had a gut feeling that everything was going to be okay for them. Voltron had done the seemingly impossible and incredibly dangerous by attacking the emperor's HQ head on and completing their goal of saving her and the princess. She was sure they would be able to successfully escape from this whole mess in the end.

A cool mist quickly poured into the pod, numbing her senses as the healing sedative kicked in. Her vision gradually faded to black and Mari smiled to herself as she was pulled under.

* * *

Sorry I uploaded this late. The last two weeks have been hella busy for me. Anyways, there's one more chapter left to this story in the series. I don't know when I'll be able to post it, cuz school has been a real b*tch lately lol. The latest it could come out would be mid-October, but I'll try my best to get it out before then.

Also, I have this short story about Lotor that I wrote for a class last fall. If anyone is interested in reading it, let me know in the comments and I'll post it unedited as something to hold ya over in between chapters.

** **Please feel free to leave a comment/review down below! They are much appreciated & encourage me to keep writing this fic :D**

 ****Feel free to check out my tumblr too, which is pufftheninja.**


	15. Chapter 15

**Shoutout to **Ishval** and **BearFangDK** for leaving reviews last chapter! Thank you so, so much for sharing your opinions and feedback! :D

 ****I do not own Voltron: Legendary Defender!**

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Everything was enveloped in an inky blackness, the frigid air numbing her limbs. A pair of glowing yellow eyes appeared in front of her and they narrowed as they locked onto her presence, a ragged laugh echoing through the darkness as they did so. Those eyes belonged to someone that would bring her harm. They were the eyes of an enemy, of a true monster. She was afraid of those eyes, of the malevolent intent that was evident in their gaze. She had to get away from them. She had to _run_. But her body wasn't cooperating. It wouldn't move no matter how hard she tried.

The eyes were moving towards her now, piercing into her soul and setting it on fire as they began to close the gap between them. The chilling laughter grew louder, more chaotic, and her panic escalated. She knew she was going to die if those eyes reached her, and she cried out in desperation for help, for someone to get her away from those hostile golden orbs before they completely consumed her and turned her to ash.

Suddenly, the screeching laughter stopped and the eyes disappeared. The coldness that was hindering her movement was receding, and she could feel herself falling forward at an alarming rate. She braced herself for the inevitable collision with the hard surface of a floor, but instead, her face was buried in something soft and warm and smelling faintly of cinnamon. It was comforting and felt familiar and safe, until whatever had caught her began squeezing the air out of her.

"Mari! Oh my gosh, holy crow! Thank goodness you're okay!" a kind voice bellowed above her, his tone radiating relief and joy.

"H-Hunk…can't…breathe," she wheezed, and the pressure around her torso instantly disappeared, allowing her to suck in a deep breath.

"Heh heh, sorry about that," he apologized sheepishly. "I'm just so glad you're all right."

Mari cracked open her eyes and blinked several times to let her vision come into focus. Hunk was grinning widely and hovering over her, his large and gentle hands firmly holding her shoulders to keep her steady as feeling slowly returned to her legs. She glanced sluggishly around the room and noted that Allura, Coran, Pidge, and Lance were here as well, all dressed in their regular attire.

"Welcome back," the princess greeted, taking Mari's hands in her own and squeezing them lightly. She was smiling despite the anxious light in her eyes. "How are you feeling?"

Mari took a moment to assess herself before answering. Her headache was gone and her insides didn't feel like they were melting anymore, so that was good. The blistering burns that had previously wrapped around her wrists, ankles, and waist were not longer there and the fused fabric of her old suit had disappeared as well. It had all been replaced by brand new smooth and healthy skin. She was feeling perfectly fine, in no pain at all.

"I'm feeling great," she assured Allura, her voice a bit hoarse. She swallowed thickly and scratched at her throat. "Just a bit hungry…And thirsty."

Allura beamed. "Well, I'm sure we can fix that right away," she chuckled before turning to Coran expectantly. "How does she look, Coran? Is she all right to leave?"

"Her fever's broken and her vitals have returned to normal," the Altean advisor relayed as he scanned over the data from her cryo-pod's last readings on the center control panel. "She is all good to go, Princess!"

At that moment, Mari's stomach growled loudly and she felt her cheeks grow warm in embarrassment while the others exchanged knowing looks.

"Well what are we waiting for? Let's get you something to eat then!" Hunk grinned, gesturing towards the door.

Pidge sidled up next to Mari, latching onto her arm to escort the taller girl towards the exit. "Hunk managed to make something really close to lasagna," she pitched in excitedly. "It's not exactly the same, but it tastes _amazing_. You have to try it!"

"You were out for a while, so we have _a lot_ of crazy stuff to tell you too," Lance added, and he lifted his fingers to start counting off events. "We escaped through this corrupted wormhole and all of us got separated in our lions, Allura and Coran were stuck in a time loop, Hunk and I were on this water planet with mermaids—"

"I was stuck on a trash nebula," Pidge provided, smiling wryly as she added, "And I basically saved all of us. No biggie."

" _Ahem_ ," Lance said, casting the Green Paladin a mildly annoyed look before continuing, "Yeah. Pidge was stuck _there._ And Shiro and Keith were on this dead moon, and Shiro would've been mauled by these giant lizard thingies if Keith hadn't piloted the Black Lion and saved him."

Time loops? Mermaids? _Keith_ piloting the _Black Lion_? Exactly how long had she been out for all of this to have happened? And what was this about Shiro being…mauled by lizards?

"Whoa, whoa, hold up a sec," she said, bringing them to a halt in the doorway. "Where…where are Keith and Takashi?"

Lance's smile faltered and he looked past her back into the med bay. Pidge grimaced and she turned around, gently leading Mari to a cryo-pod that was currently in use. Behind the frosted blue glass, unconscious but healing, was Shiro.

"When I picked him and Keith up, he was in bad shape," Pidge admitted, frowning sadly as she looked up at their leader. "He wasn't on the brink of death or anything, but still…Those creatures really gave him hell."

"And he was still injured from fighting Haggar," Mari murmured.

The witch's chilling laughter whispered in her ear, and she could still see those golden eyes, gleaming manically and full of crazed hostility. She could feel the woman caressing her face, treating her like she was some kind of pet. The whine of the examination bed before it zapped its victim and the burning sensation of that poison ran through Mari's mind. She screwed her eyes shut as the painful memories came flooding back to her, but she just couldn't get that lab out of her head. She could still feel rough hands touching her, hurting her. Her breathing grew shallow and she would've been swallowed up by fear and panic if Pidge hadn't grounded her.

The smaller girl was hugging her tightly now and looking up at her through worried eyes, enlarged by her round spectacles. Pidge was the smartest out of all of them and full of so much sass and wit. Mari always forgot that she only fifteen, the youngest out of all of them. But the way she looked right now, so anxious and uncertain, she looked so much younger than that. So un-Pidge like.

"It wasn't your fault," she said softly, her voice never wavering. "You're both safe now."

Mari let out a huff of bitter laughter. "Am I that easy to read?" she wondered and the smaller girl nodded as she returned to holding Mari's arm.

"He'll be all right, Mari. He'll be as good as new come tomorrow morning," Allura chimed in, her tone optimistic as she placed a reassuring hand on the human's shoulder. "But for now, just worry about yourself. You need to eat and rest."

"Yeah," Pidge agreed, looking up at her pleadingly. "Hunk's lasagna…"

"You're really adamant on me having some of it, huh?" Mari mused and Pidge nodded eagerly. Sighing, she gave Shiro one last look before turning away from him. "Okay. Let me get dressed first and then you guys can fill me in on everything I missed while I try the lasagna."

* * *

While Coran stayed behind to monitor Shiro's vitals, Allura, Pidge, and Lance prepared the dining hall for dinner and Hunk warmed up his lasagna, leaving Mari to get changed out of her cryo-suit. She tugged on her regular attire in silence in her bedroom, the pristine white walls and blue lights calming her nerves some. She found them so soothing after having spent hours in the dimly lit gray interiors of Galra facilities.

Mari stood in front of the mirror as she tugged her shirt over her head, pausing as she took in the left side of her face. The wound Macidus had given her hadn't scarred, thank goodness, and she placed her hand on her cheek, running her fingers over the soft new skin. She was light years away from him now, but even the thought of him made her heart leap into her throat. She could still feel his invasive touch lingering, his fingers ghosting over her body longingly. She wondered what he would've done to her if he hadn't had to go to the Komar, and a shiver racked her body at the thought of it.

"You're fine, you're fine," she whispered to herself, her voice cracking. She folded her arms over her chest for comfort and began to pace back and forth fretfully in front of the mirror. It was like Haggar's cruel smile and Macidus's mask were plastered to the back of her eyelids, taunting her relentlessly. "You're okay, you're okay. You're safe now. You're—!"

She yelped and jumped nearly a foot in the air as someone suddenly knocked loudly on her door. Her heart beating rapidly inside her chest, she stammered out a weak, "W-What? You can come in."

The door slid open and Keith stood there in the entrance, his brow furrowed and his lips curled into a slight frown. She hadn't seen him since she'd been kidnapped, she realized. He hadn't even been there when she had woken up. Mari straightened, flattening the creases in her shirt as she stared at him.

"Oh…Hi," she said, unsure of what to say as the air between them grew awkward. "You—You scared me there for a second."

"Oh, uh…sorry about that," he muttered. He glanced around the inside of her room for a moment, and Mari shuffled uncomfortably from foot-to-foot where she stood. This was the first time anyone else besides Shiro had seen her bedroom on the Castle of Lions, and it felt a bit weird for Keith of all people to be the first one to see it. She said nothing though as he hesitantly stepped inside and the door shut soundlessly behind him.

"Coran told us the extent of your injuries," he finally said, breaking the silence between them. "How are you feeling?" His tone was nonchalant, but his eyes were brimming with something Mari seldom saw directed towards her from him: concern.

"I'm okay. Just a bit frazzled, " she admitted quietly, rubbing some warmth back into her arms. She waited a moment before continuing lamely, "I heard you fought Zarkon. And piloted the Black Lion."

Keith stiffened and his gaze trailed to the floor as he crossed his arms defensively over his chest. "Yeah," he answered curtly. "It wasn't a big deal."

Going head-to-head with their biggest enemy and piloting the most powerful Voltron lion wasn't a 'big deal' to him? Mari couldn't tell if he was just being modest or really thought that way.

"You saved Takashi," she said. " _Again_. It's a big deal to me. So…thank you."

Her gratitude seemed to catch him off guard and his eyes widened as he gaped at her. "…What? Wait—Why are you—You're not supposed to be thanking me," he grimaced, not even bothering to try and hide the annoyance in his tone. "I came here to apologize and you're just…"

His voice trailed off and a huff of frustration escaped him as he placed one hand on his hip and carded the other through his hair in distress. Mari tilted her head slightly to one side and raised an eyebrow at him, confusion lining her features.

"Why would you need to apologize?" she mumbled, shifting slightly so that she was looking at herself in the mirror again. She grabbed a hairband from the top of the dresser and proceeded to pull her dark locks out of her face, Keith watching her incredulously all the while.

"Why would I—You could have died because of me!" he exclaimed, making her flinch. "If I had listened to you back on the Galra base, then you wouldn't have gotten kidnapped and you wouldn't have been tortured!"

Haggar's glare, Macidus's hands, the lab, the torment—it was all creeping up on her again. She couldn't seem to shake the memories away, the feeling of her mind and body being violated, and it was unbelievably infuriating. But she couldn't blame Keith for everything that had happened to her. Not when she had chosen to follow him back at the Galra hub. Not when Haggar had been the one to inflict the mental and physical damage.

Taking in a shaky breath, Mari swiped angrily at the tears threatening to spill from the corners of her eyes before letting her hands fall heavily to her sides. She shook her head helplessly as she faced him wordlessly, fearing that she'd start crying if she spoke. The Red Paladin seemed to have understood though, and he blinked at her in surprise before guilty averting his gaze the floor. The two were cast in silence once more, both of them unsure of what to do or say next.

"…I'm sorry," Keith finally whispered, his eyes never leaving the floor.

He was slouching, wilting really, caving in on himself as self-blame ate away at his conscience. What had happened to her hadn't been any of his fault, but he was still holding himself responsible for this whole fiasco. Seeing him like this, so regretful and mad at himself, made irritation blossom inside of Mari, and she sniffled and rolled her drying eyes. Snatching up her jacket from the bed and tugging it on, she took several steps forward and closed the distance between them. Then without a word, she gifted him a flick on the tip of his nose.

As expected, the action instantly snapped Keith out of it and he reeled back, a hand flying up to his face. His eyes sparked with that familiar irritation he always cast her way, and his lips twitched into a snarl.

"Ow! What the hell?" he growled, rubbing his nose, and she patted him lightly on the shoulder.

"Stop beating yourself up about this," she chided. "You look even stupider than usual when you're full of self-pity."

Keith scowled at her and his arms naturally folded over his chest again. "I wasn't beating myself up," he grumbled stubbornly.

"You were. You're so easy to read sometimes," she countered with a dry smile and he bristled indignantly. "Look, it was my choice to go with you. It's my own fault that I got taken."

"But if I hadn't—"

Irritation taking over once more, Mari's eyes narrowed and she abruptly cut him off by smushing a finger over his lips. Keith looked even madder now, his personal space being violated by her for the third time within the span of a few minutes. But before he could swat her hand away, she sighed and removed her finger on her own.

"Just like I wasn't responsible for Shiro's kidnapping from Kerberos, you're not responsible for my kidnapping from the base," she said quietly, her steely gaze never wavering from his as she looked him dead in the eyes, sparkling gray boring into a shimmering bluish gray. "All that torture was Haggar's fault, not yours. I don't blame you for anything that happened, Keith. But if you still insist on apologizing…then I forgive you, okay?"

The Red Paladin was silent for a moment and his brow furrowed as he mulled over this. He seemed torn between quietly accepting what she'd said or just continuing to flat out argue against her. Finally, he gave in and simply nodded at her in confirmation despite his lips pressing into a thin and mildly frustrated line.

Nevertheless, Mari was satisfied with his answer. She brushed past him and opened the door, stepping out of the room and pausing in the hallway to wait for him. "I'm sure dinner's almost ready," she said, her voice light and casual as she nodded down the corridor. "We're having Hunk's make-shift lasagna. Pidge is insistent that I try it."

Keith turned and blinked at her twice, staring at her contemplatively for a moment before his hands slowly fell to his sides. A small smirk formed on his face and he joined her in the hall, allowing her bedroom door to shut once he had left.

"It's the best lasagna I've ever had," he vouched for Hunk's culinary skills, and she grinned as they walked together towards their destination. Keith was standing up straighter and seemed more relaxed with each step they took, and Mari had the feeling that everything was going to be all right between them.

"Oh, I almost forgot." Keith suddenly came to a halt in front of the dining room and reached around behind him, unhooking something from the back of his belt. "Here, this is yours."

He held out a sleek metal rod to her and Mari's eyes lit up in recognition at the item. "That's—That's my staff!" she exclaimed, her heart fluttering with excitement at the sight of her trusted weapon.

"I've been holding onto it ever since we left the base," Keith explained as she took the staff in her hands, his expression one of awkward embarrassment as she gleefully examined it.

The smooth yet grippable metal felt sturdy and reassuring, and she sighed in relief at having it back in her possession. She clipped it to the side of her belt, hanging it at its rightful spot on her waist. It felt good having it rest against her thigh again. It grounded her, reminded her that she wasn't completely incapable.

"Thank you so much, Keith," she beamed widely at him, and she would've hugged him if he didn't get so uncomfortable about that kind of stuff. Besides, she had invaded his space enough for one day. "I thought I'd lost it for good."

Keith shrugged indifferently, but the corners of his lips pulled up ever so slightly. "No problem," he said curtly before leading the way into the dining room where the others were waiting for them at the table.

Dinner that evening was lively as everyone ate Hunk's lasagna—which, as promised, was absolutely _delicious_ —and shared their experiences from after they had escaped the Galran HQ. After the Castle had traveled into a corrupted wormhole and the lions had gotten scattered, Allura and Coran had become stuck in a time loop that reverted Coran's age and the space mice's biological composition. Pidge had landed in a trash nebula and befriended these cute puffball-like creatures before she'd built a homing beacon that pulled the Castle of Lions out of the time-loop. Meanwhile, Shiro and Keith had gotten separated on a rocky moon, and Keith had rescued Shiro from being killed by giant space lizards by piloting the Black Lion. And Lance and Hunk had saved a race of brainwashed merfolk from an underwater serpent.

Everyone's stories were crazy and riveting, producing smiles and laughter all around and making Mari's thoughts of Haggar and her time spent on Zarkon's ship gradually subside. Everyone looked so happy and at peace, and watching them made her heart swell with joy and reassurance. It couldn't have been more than a day or two since she had last been together with them like this, but it felt like that had been such a long, long time ago.

Deep down, she had been afraid she'd never get to see any of them again, that she'd die from Haggar's torturing eventually. But as always, the paladins had come through for their friends in need and they had saved her and Allura. They were all a little tired and Shiro was still healing, but at least they were all _finally_ out of harm's way and reunited as a family.

"Oh! That's right!" Coran exclaimed, abruptly pulling her out of her thoughts. "Mari, you mentioned meeting a kind Galra, didn't you?"

Everyone's eyes widened and their attention zeroed in on her as they expectantly waited to hear _that_ story. Allura scoffed and her eyes narrowed in dismay as she said, "A _kind_ Galra? I doubt one even exists."

Mari squirmed uncomfortably in her seat and her brow furrowed as she poked a stray lasagna scrap on her plate with her fork. "He really does exist though," she promised them, that sorrowful face of his as he provided her with water and medicine coming back to mind. "He seemed genuinely worried about me."

"If he had truly cared about you, he would have freed you and helped you escape," Allura insisted, her frown only deepening.

"He mentioned that he couldn't risk doing that. Besides, Voltron had arrived and he said one of you guys would definitely save me. He had enough faith and trust in Voltron to leave me alone in the lab. He…He believed that you would succeed in rescuing me and Allura."

Mari sighed, sitting back in her chair tiredly as she struggled to piece together exactly who this Galra was: a neutral individual who was just being kind, or a supporter of Voltron and their goal. The more she thought about him and what he had said, the more she began to believe that he was the latter. She really wished she had gotten his name.

"'Allies of Voltron still exist within the empire, even amongst the Galra'. That's what he told me before he left," she hesitantly shared aloud. "I think…we just have to find them."

* * *

 **A/n:** Oof I started this particular story in February and now it's finally wrapped up in October lol. And I still have 7 more seasons to get through XD I'll try to crank out as many chapters as I can before December 14th, but even after the Voltron series comes to a close, I'll still be continuing this fic until the very end.

Thank you so so SOOOO much to everyone who has been sticking with me and with Mari. And thank you for leaving reviews! Hearing from you makes my day so much better and it really does make me want to drop what I'm doing and write another chapter. Story number 4 in this series, _Scarlett and the Blades_ , will be coming out soon, so I hope you'll look forward to it!

** **Please feel free to leave a comment/review down below! They are much appreciated & encourage me to keep writing this fic :D**

 ****Feel free to check out my tumblr too, which is pufftheninja.**


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